DGFT permits export of potatoes without any min export price

The Dollar Business Bureau

The prices of potatoes have shot off the roof in most parts of India for the past couple of months. Though farmers are now getting almost double the price per kilogram, yet they suffer a loss as what they earn is much below the cost of production. The buyers, however,  are having to pay through their nose. This is partly due to the heavy rains that damaged the crops in the leading potato-growing states of India- Odisha, Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand. The demand for potatoes is being met with the supply of old stock.

The Government did not take any steps to check the price rise during the price peak months of October and November

However, the Ministry of Commerce in its latest notification No.32/2015-2020 dtd December 27, 2016, has with immediate effect permitted to export potatoes without any Minimum Export Price (MEP).

It should be mentioned here that in the month of July 2016, the Ministry had imposed an MEP of $360 per tonne on potatoes to increase availability in the domestic market and also to bring down the prices.

Though India is the world's second largest producer of potatoes at 48 million tonnes in 2014-15, its exports were woefully less than 1% of the output it produced. In the fiscal year of 2015-16, India exported a mere $54.5 million worth of potatoes, which is 1.6% of total raw potato exported globally. India stands 15th in the list of highest dollar value worth of unprocessed raw potatoes exported in 2015 with Netherlands being crowned the king in both the unprocessed and processed potato exports list. Netherlands exported $604.2 million worth of raw potatoes in 2015 gaining a global standing of 18.2% and $1.4 billion of processed potatoes gaining a standing of 21.5% of total prepared potatoes exports in the world.

According to a study published online the overall, the value of raw potatoes exports decreased in value by an average -27.7% for all exporting countries since 2011 when raw potatoes shipments were valued at $4.6 billion.