Pepper: Vietnam looks to India as China market stalls Commodity

The Vietnam government has urged the Indian government to reduce trade barriers on its exports, of items such as black pepper and cashew nuts. This is clearly a bid to make up for any possible negative impact of the coronavirus on the Southeast Asian country's trade with China, its largest trading partner. Trade between Vietnam and China is expected to be hit severely by travel curbs and closure of borders over virus concerns.

The Vietnamese coincided with the initiated by the move steps Sri

Lankan government to prevent routing of third country origin pepper to India following a request of the Indian government. Sri Lanka has also temporarily suspended import of spices, including pepper and arecanut to Sri Lanka through the Entry Port Trade and Commercial Hub operations to prevent these spices being reshipped to India as Sri Lankan products.

The Indian Pepper and Spice Traders, Growers, Planters Consortium,

Kerala chapter, had earlier requested the government not to allow pepper imports till the domestic price of pepper reached Rs 500 per kg.

Imports of black pepper into India have likely risen by over 17 per cent month-on-month to 1,640 tonne in December as domestic traders stepped up purchases due to lower prices in Vietnam. Pepper is now sold at Rs 150-250 per kg in Vietnam against Rs 320-325 per kg in India, depending on the quality. Vietnam is the cheapest and largest producer in the world. Pepper production in there was nearly 22 per cent up at 280,000 tonne in 2019.