Trading in Pepper -The Figures you need to know

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Black pepper or black gold is a spice which is largely consumed by many people across the globe. Hence, it has a huge demand in India as well as in overseas market. In India, pepper is largely used in cooking various recepies and is also very well known for its medicinal properties.

Black pepper is traded in Indian Markets as well as in overseas markets. In India it is traded in Indian commodity exchanges namely, National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange ltd, Multi Commodity Exchange of India ltd, National Multi Commodity Exchange of India ltd and India Pepper & Spice Trade Association.

The trading centers where pepper is majorly traded are New York, Singapore, Rotterdam, Lampung, and Sarawak in Malaysia, Vietnam and Kochi from India.
The Physical pepper markets in India are at Cochin, Alleppey, Calicut, Konni, Adoor, Pala, Alwaye, Badagara, Telicherry, and Mumbai to name a few.

Factors influencing pepper prices:

There are many factors which influence the prices of pepper in the world wide market. Let us have a look at some of them.

• The production and exports of other countries which are into large scale production of Pepper.
• Year ending stocks
• The consumption ratio of the stocks
• Annual production during different weather conditions during each and every year
• The number of holdings by the producers
• The import and export policies laid by government
• The large scale imports and exports which take place in Sri Lanka

The prices of pepper have shown drastic increase by about 16% from the last few months. This is due to be low production in India as well as from the overseas market. As a result of the same the prices have increased from Rs. 223 per kg in the month of March till Rs. 258 in the month of April.

Even the production from the major producer of the country, Kerala is also very low. It is estimated that the pepper prices will remain low even in the next few trading sessions. This is due to the fact that the prices are lower in overseas market than in the domestic market.

In India, Kerala is the largest producer of pepper comprising to about 90% of the total production. It is also said that there is a lot of difference in the quality of pepper produced when compared to the pepper produced in other markets across the globe.

The global pepper production is about 300,000-330,000 ton per year. The countries which produce pepper majorly are Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, China and Ecuador. International Pepper Community, an apex body of major pepper producing countries in the world, has placed global pepper output in 2006 at 274,000 ton.

The price movement of pepper also depends much on the climatic conditions. A good and a suitable climate can produce a good yield and if the supply is more than the demand, the prices decline. The case in the years 2000 when Vietnam produced a vast supply of pepper was similar. It hence resulted in the decline in the prices.