Overcoming various bottlenecks, India’s spices and spice products exports registered a 41 per cent surge in rupee terms during the first two months of the current financial year. As per a quick estimate, spices and spice products shipments during April- May were worth ₹6,702.52 crore ($815.39 million) compared with ₹4746.85 crore ($618.63 million) in the same period a year ago, an increase of 32 per cent in dollar terms.

“Despite facing challenges, such as the increase in domestic prices of chilli and cumin and reduced/deferred demand due to the economic stress in some of the importing countries, the Indian spices sector, during FY23, has shown much resilience to put up an export performance on par with that of the previous year. During FY23, India exported close to $4 billion worth of spices (₹3,1761.38 crore), an increase of 4.74 per cent in terms of rupee terms compared with FY22,’’ said D Sathiyan, Secretary, Spices Board.

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China, US top buyers

Spices exports during FY23 is valued at ₹31,761.38 crore against ₹30,324.32 crores during FY22. The major contributors in the spices export basket in terms of value were chilli (33 per cent), cumin or jeera (13 per cent), spice oil and oleoresins (13 per cent), mint products (11 per cent), turmeric (5 per cent), curry powder (4 per cent), cardamom (small) (3 per cent), and pepper (2 per cent), which together contributed to more than 80 per cent of the total spices export earnings.

Major importers were China (20 per cent), USA (14 per cent), Bangladesh (7 per cent), UAE (6 per cent), Thailand (5 per cent), Indonesia (4 per cent), Malaysia (4 per cent), UK (3 per cent), Sri Lanka (3 per cent), Germany (2 per cent), Netherlands (2 per cent), Nepal (2 per cent), and Saudi Arabia (2 per cent), contributing more than 70 per cent of the export earnings of spices. Out of the top 11 destinations, exports to seven major destinations increased during FY23.

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Export performance for April 2023 showed a major increase over the previous year on account of increased export of spices, such as chilli, cumin, turmeric, fennel and garlic. The quantity exported was 1,43,523 tonnes against ₹1,19,534 tonnes in April 2022.

As per the quick estimate, spices export in May stood at ₹3,726.16 crore ($453.73 million) against ₹2,341.31 crore ($302.81 million) in May 2022.

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