Widespread damage to essential commodities in Pakistan by heavy rains has led to sudden jump in demand for Indian vegetables.
Widespread damage to essential commodities in Pakistan by heavy rains has led to sudden jump in demand for Indian vegetables through Attari-Wagah land route, Amritsar-based exporters said on Monday.
Against the usual supply of 10-15 trucks (10 tonne per truck) of tomatoes per day four to five days back, the supply of perishable commodity by land route has shot up to 70-80 trucks of tomatoes per day, exporters pointed out.
"We were sending just 20 trucks of tomatoes few days back. As there is a heavy damage to vegetable crop in Pakistan by rains, the demand for Indian tomato has increased sharply," Amritsar-based vegetable merchant Rajdeep Uppal said.
Entire lot of tomatoes is being sourced from Nasik in Maharashtra in order to supply to Pakistan, exporters further pointed out.
Red chilly is another commodity which is in demand from across the border, he said.
Considering heavy damage to vegetable crop in Pakistan, Indian exporters are anticipating further orders of vegetables including lady finger and bitter gourd in next two weeks.
"We have inquiries for supply of lady finger and bitter gourd from Pakistan and we are hopeful of receiving sizeable orders for these vegetables in next 15 days from Pakistan based traders," Anil Mehra, another vegetable exporter said.
Exporters also informed that the demand for Indian onion could also emerge from Pakistan if ban on export of bulb is withdrawn by Indian authorities.
According to exporters, floods have caused heavy damage to vegetable crop in Sindh province of Pakistan.
India exports several commodities, including potato, tomato, garlic, frozen meat, cotton, cabbage, capsicum, beans, red stone, soybean extraction meal, via Attari-Wagah land route to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, according to data provided by custom authorities, exports to Pakistan through Attari Wagah land route has declined by 10% during April till July in current fiscal primarily on account of dip in supply of raw cotton from India.
Quantity-wise, total exports of all goods, including vegetables, raw cotton, soybean extraction meal etc from India went down by 15,203 tonne to 1,50,175 tonnes in first four months of this fiscal.
Likewise, shipments from Attari-Wagah land route in value terms also dropped by 8% from Rs334.36 crore to Rs307.46 crore in April till July.
Fall in exports is attributed to drop in demand for Indian vegetables as Pakistan-based traders imported just 1,065 MT of vegetables from India in during April till July in current fiscal, which was much lesser than 4,903 MT of fresh vegetables sourced in corresponding period of last fiscal.
Major dip in vegetable supply was seen in garlic and fresh tomatoes, which plummeted by 80 to 85%. Pakistan had imported garlic and tomatoes worth Rs3.36 crore and 2.57 crore during April and July in 2011-12 respectively, from India.
Export of raw cotton to Pakistan also reduced to Rs20.61 crore in four months against Rs74.04 crore in corresponding period, as per data available.
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