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| Sunday, 1 August 2004 |
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Lankan spices snapped up in India by Elmo Leonard Sri Lanka's crop of spices and allied products falls far short of quantities which could be exported, thus, exporters are urging clusters of growers in villages to do collective cultivation. Furthermore, spices have been grown as home-garden crops where there is low productivity and poor quality due to adoption of improper post harvest methods, outgoing Chairman of the Spices and Allied Products Producers' and Traders' Association (SAPTA) Gulam Chatoor said. SAPTA's recent endeavour, backed by the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Export Development Board to to get the plantation sector involved in spice production, has not yet been successful Chatoor said. Sri Lanka's contribution of around 7,000 tonnes of pepper is only 3 percent of world trade. SAPTA consists of 110 members and has been assisting its producer members by holding seminars and workshops periodically, covering productivity and post havest practices. Recently SAPTA took a group of farmers to Kerala, India to enable them to study the latest techniques adopted in the subcontinent. SAPTA had also taken a delegation of exporters to the World Spice Congress held in India and to the annual sessions conducted by the International Pepper Community, Jakarta, Indonesia. Under the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement, exports of spices and crude drugs into India reaches that destination at zero duty, against 70 percent tariff for imports from other origins into that destination. There is unnecessary criticism from the spice trade in India that too much pepper imports from Sri Lanka has reached that destination. The Customs Department and SAPTA have regular meetings to ensure that only spices certified as originating from Sri Lanka reach India under the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. Chatoor said that there is criticism from India calling on the Indian government to cap the imports of pepper into India from the island. The trade in India was over-reacting, since the introduction of zero tarriff, exports of pepper to India had gone upp by about 3000 tonnes, while India's annual consumption of pepper is more than 40,000 tonnes. In 2003, resulting from the lowering of tariffs on spices from Sri Lanka to India, the subcontinent imported 77 percent of the island's exports of pepper, 90 percent of cloves and 47 percent of total exports of nutmeg. Consequent to the Indo-Lanka agreement local farmers obtain higher prices and the country receives more forex earnings. Most cinnamon produced here goes to Mexico while North America and Europe are other chief buyers. Crude drugs exports to India are also on the rise and Samahan, a well known brand here is also a household name in India, according to Chatoor. |
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