NASHIK: India's onion export is believed to have declined by 18 per cent in May to about 1.50 lakh tonnes, over the same month last year, due to high domestic prices.
According to the reports received so far, the country has exported 1.46 lakh tonnes during last month, against 1.77 lakh tonnes in the year-ago period, a senior official at Nafed said on Thursday.
He attributed the decline in exports to high prices in the domestic market.
In April 2009, onion exports stood at 2.25 lakh tonnes against 1.31 lakh tonnes in the same month last year.
During the first two months of this fiscal, India has exported a total of 3.71 lakh tonnes of onion as against 3.08 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period of last year.
Onion exports stood at 17.6 lakh tonnes in the 2008-09 fiscal as compared to 11.02 lakh tonnes in the previous year.
Shipments are channelised through co-operative major Nafed, which decides the MEP for every month in consultation with 12 other state trading agencies and issues no-objection certificates to empanelled exporters.
Onion from the southern part of the country is exported mainly to Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, while that from Nasik is sent mostly to Gulf countries.
Meanwhile, Nafed has kept the minimum export price of onion unchanged at an average of $155-190 a tonne for June.
Source : Business Line