The Spices Board has said it is closely monitoring cardamom auction prices, which has shown a decline in the last few days.

The Board feels the prevalent market conditions do not warrant any such decline, it said in a press release here.

The auction arrivals in the current crop season (July, 2010 to first week of May, 2011) were 9,461 tonnes against 8,975 tonnes in the same period of last crop season. The increase in arrivals was only 5 per cent.

During the last two years, import of cardamom from Guatemala was not very significant. In 2010-11, the import was around 75 tonnes, while it was 95 tonnes in 2009-10, it said.

The cardamom production in Guatemala is also reported to be around 20,000 tonnes as against their normal production figure of 27,000 tonnes to 30,000 tonnes.

The export figures from Guatemala shows their export had declined from 27,961 tonnes in 2007 to 23,693 tonnes in 2009 and further to 22,167 tonnes in 2010. The reduced exports confirm the production decline in Guatemala as they have practically no domestic consumption.

Related Topics