India losing Bargaining Power in Global Pulses Trade

India loosing 'Bargining Power' in Global Trade

List of Countries Importing more than 10,000 tons

of Pulses per year

Compiled By:

Vijay Sardana

Commodity Market and Agribusiness Expert

Government of India is claiming there is 50% more area under pulses cultivation. Let us assume that this will yield as per the expected performance. This will increase our pulses by about 2.5 million tons.  Even after the better MSP and more area under pulses, India will remain net importer. According to my calculation, India will be deficit by 5.6 million tons even after considering improved Rabi output. This can only be bridged provided we have technologies which can improve the yield by at least 50% on an average all over the country. This development is not visible on horizon. 

Pulses are becoming popular all over the world. India is only 30% of the world market and shrinking. 

It is strange to see as the largest buyer of the product, India is not able to develop good relation with sourcing countries and in fact recent policy announcement also suggest that policy makers are not fully aware of the ground reality. This is a classic case where the buyer is trying to behave like monopoly. Statements like Stock limits for imported consignment, hoarding outside India, fixing the finished goods prices when raw material is facing inflation, are some examples of statements which is creating odd situation for India. 

Please read my earlier blog on pulses and you will see that it was mentioned long back why current mindset of government will not help in addressing pulses crisis.

Importers	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
	Imported quantity	Imported quantity, Tons	Imported quantity, Tons	Imported quantity, Tons	Imported quantity, Tons
World	12,192,694	13,100,000	14,110,123	15,729,810	15,854,505
India	3,221,937	3,815,735	3,800,859	4,517,340	5,413,892
China	790,029	742,291	1,106,173	863,041	1,001,873
Egypt	444,105	408,499	2,497,771	1,601,414	864,911
Bangladesh	451,419	516,133	816,586	903,102	802,654
Congo	4,233	7,436	5,204	4,160	637,618
Pakistan	613,249	591,992	433,999	591,764	579,728
Turkey	401,258	272,186	335,897	450,149	479,364
United States of America	322,090	331,416	361,331	519,779	438,608
United Arab Emirates	300,000	322,760	435,371	439,788	401,343
Italy	287,173	277,218	296,094	309,144	312,102
Sri Lanka	226,134	177,929	200,000	228,721	261,519
Spain	300,649	406,092	275,900	253,238	220,959
United Kingdom	221,651	225,208	229,328	238,212	214,834
Brazil	269,691	370,036	373,725	190,770	208,676
Kenya	104,530		74,624	89,700	199,700
Algeria	250,849	176,487	264,030	192,124	188,090
Saudi Arabia	148,132	156,159	165,682	190,947	183,076
Sudan (North + South)	71,060	126,375	145,436	142,695	170,553
Germany	147,407	117,464	164,619	167,620	150,130
Canada	101,682	105,613	116,374	151,349	145,976
Mexico	171,870		197,931	173,511	139,821
Colombia	146,290	138,028	118,613	136,168	135,596
Belgium	140,454	148,102	175,599	158,169	130,196
Japan	148,932	150,905	132,831	134,826	128,054
Viet Nam	12,988	13,000	20,000	63,319	116,383
Malaysia	105,584	97,556	97,515	92,985	105,848
France	98,308	95,245	107,066	103,941	105,157
Norway	111,583	69,014	81,620	97,937	102,384
Peru	73,482	78,040	71,739	81,253	92,206
Cuba	83,756	77,500	100,771	115,738	76,967
Philippines	81,603	80,204	80,408	80,013	72,292
Netherlands	90,764	125,538	91,811	90,585	68,843
Jordan	57,216	56,438	61,388	62,078	66,486
South Africa	111,787	108,164	76,464	75,321	64,922
Iraq	84,343	80,026	85,588	112,003	64,884
Ethiopia	38,789	22,091	24,098	33,472	61,956
Portugal	58,868	58,912	65,567	73,212	55,877
Angola	50,588	43,643	56,906	58,990	54,723
Taipei, Chinese	61,177	54,384	58,704	51,218	53,144
Indonesia	108,113	102,062	129,171	132,116	49,917
Korea, Republic of	56,848	53,164	50,694	70,162	49,312
Nepal	56,441	60,781	91,955	102,346	47,168
Yemen	40,348	49,874	57,057	130,632	46,244
Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of	113,545	181,799	135,139	172,182	45,920
Thailand	32,128	35,424	35,424	49,792	41,858
Djibouti	19,394	17,745	25,505	20,560	39,233
Costa Rica	40,055	44,983	38,950	41,354	38,184
Russian Federation	42,326	29,353	36,287	44,536	33,893
Lebanon	35,020	35,601	41,581	43,781	32,526
Greece	34,786	34,060	28,605	29,580	29,658
Haiti	26,019	15,179	12,201	24,293	28,930
Kuwait	25,732	23,264	25,728	28,495	26,519
Bulgaria	23,817	31,436	29,838	26,720	26,229
Ecuador	26,831	24,093	26,713	25,646	25,643
Romania	25,059	30,417	26,040	25,766	25,592
El Salvador	44,755	29,827	14,736	10,928	23,355
Switzerland	17,279	14,000	21,619	21,302	22,766
Syrian Arab Republic	19,921	19,541	11,162	17,680	20,612
Denmark	20,096	16,183	17,583	9,342	20,138
Qatar	18,475	21,622	23,531	25,261	19,811
Czech Republic	13,987	13,971	15,818	16,033	19,481
Singapore	18,703	17,830	17,367	18,339	18,868
Hungary	16,089	13,210	14,935	15,961	18,196
Oman	12,569	12,135	16,818	15,515	17,279
Guatemala	30,518	16,293	11,787	11,679	17,028
Serbia	15,215	18,613	15,494	16,053	16,967
Australia	14,982	12,321	14,048	13,586	15,753
Poland	19,572	17,069	20,185	23,793	15,654
Tunisia	20,885	12,773	9,957	18,554	15,186
Honduras	6,200	2,250	11,427	14,096	13,770
Latvia	3,241	1,752	1,481	1,840	13,210
Panama	12,873	12,122	11,225	10,952	12,967
Myanmar	55	668	707	4,244	12,703
Mauritius	12,201	No Quantity	13,594	12,845	12,445
Trinidad and Tobago	12,089	10,906	11,981	12,276	12,167
Hong Kong, China	10,204	8,979	8,612	8,646	11,259
Lithuania	4,280	2,265	3,200	4,685	11,025
New Zealand	9,654	9,672	10,603	11,671	10,963
Bahrain	8,240	8,363	9,746	10,178	10,929
Austria	5,883	6,905	9,596	8,195	10,686
Morocco	14,617	16,016	15,803	22,099	10,509

Please Note: India is only 30 % of the world market. World consumption of Pulses is increasing.  If government will create problem for international trade in the name of hoarding, international supplies will dry up. It will be useful for government to understand the ground reality. International market will not work as per the wish-list of government policies of India. International suppliers will divert their trade to other markets.

Policy makers must accept the ground reality:

Undersigned had already submitted a detailed action plan for Government of India’s consideration. There is no alternate with Government of India but to consider proposed action plan. It is just matter of time before they do it. How long they will take to understand the ground reality it is up to the government departments.

Government must involve stakeholders to address pulses crisis, otherwise it will be more complex with every passing day and year.

Current thinking is not going to work. There is no harm in thinking out of box to address serious issue of quality of governance. Food inflation led by Pulses will nullify all the gains for the ruling political leadership in centre as well as in states.

With best regards,

Vijay Sardana