Tobacco exports set to overshoot target
India’s tobacco exports for the current fiscal are set to exceed the stipulated annual target of $330 million. This is not just going by the current international scenario but actual performance in the first four months of ’06-07.
By Raghu Krishnan, TNN |
BANGALORE: India’s tobacco exports for the current fiscal are set to exceed the stipulated annual target of $330 million. This is not just going by the current international scenario but actual performance in the first four months of ’06-07.
Acting Tobacco Board chairman J Suresh Babu told ET, “We expect to export more this fiscal as a result of the current situation in the world market. Exports from Brazil could be affected not just by 10% drop in the country’s crop-size to 630m kg, but also by currency adjustment problems. The crop in Zimbabwe is at its lowest level in years. Decoupling of subsidies in the EU and the US would also impact production there.”
All these could explain why India’s tobacco exports during April-July period had aggregated $127m, a 43% increase in value from the $89m achieved in the corresponding period of ’05-06. For the 12 months of the previous fiscal, the country had exported $326m worth of tobacco against a target of $310m.
In April-July period, tobacco exports had registered a 30% increase in quantum to aggregate 65.1m kg, up from 49.9m kg for the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The bulk of export was in the form of raw tobacco, shipments of which had gone up for this four-month period from 44.3m kg to 56.6m kg.
The balance was in the form of tobacco products like cigarettes, beedis, chewing tobacco and hookah paste. Shipments of cigarettes had gone up from 1.5m kg to 1.8m kg but the real spurt was in exports of hookah tobacco paste, which had doubled from 2m kg to 4m kg.
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In terms of regional destinations, the share of Africa in India’s exports — the aggregate of both tobacco products and the raw variety — had increased six-fold from 3 to 18% for the first four months of this fiscal. When compared with the corresponding period of ’05-06. The share of South-East Asia in India’s tobacco exports had fallen from 26 to 20%. However, Mr Babu cautioned that too much should not be read into this, since it could be due to a volume adjustment by way of a seasonal spillover.
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