Government's decision to impose a 9.36% import duty on raw cashew nut to make it dearer

KOCHI: Cashew farmers and traders say the government’s decision to impose a 9.36% import duty on raw cashew nut will make the commodity dearer in the country besides putting pressure on the margins of processors.

India imports around 60% of its requirement of raw nuts for processing, mostly from African countries. The country has become the largest consumer of cashew kernels and exported over Rs 5,500 crore worth of cashewlast year.

Exporters had recently raised with the government the issue of misuse of free imports by a section of traders in northern India, who buy huge quantities of raw nuts and stock them, creating artificial scarcity and raising the prices.

“But there is no point in controlling imports as the processing capacity in the country has touched 2 million tonnes when the domestic production hovers around 7 lakh tonnes. Cashew prices may see a rise of 5 to 10% from the present level of around .`600 per kg,” said Pankaj N Sampath, director at Samson Traders.