Lack of overseas demand pushes jeera market down

Lack of demand from the export market coupled with supply overtaking the demand has pushed the jeera market into a short term bearish phase. According to the traders and commodity analysts, the spice commodity market is expected to remain so for the current week.

The arrivals which were reported at 25,000 bags (each bag of 55 kg), out of them 6,000 bags remained unsold. This has its impact on the spot market in Unjha as well as the futures market.

In Unjha, the main delivery centre for jeera in Gujarat, the spot rates declined by Rs 20 for a 20 kg bag and traded at Rs 1,950-1,975 a bag of 20 kg for the new crop. Moreover, the holidays followed due to Holi impacted the demand and overall market dynamics remained lacklustre.

Faiyaz Hudani, commodity analyst at Kotak Commodities, said, "The last few trading sessions are witnessing low demand especially from the export markets. The arrived crop is not being fully sold thereby pressurising the prices on the downside. We expect that jeera market will continue to see low prices for the next couple of days."

Trading sources said that arrival pressure may dent the prices even further. On the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange, the near month contract of jeera slipped in the last four trading sessions to Rs 11,431 a quintal from Rs 11,802, down 3 per cent.

The country has a carry forward stock of around 3-4 lakh bags, which, during the same period last season was 8-9 lakh bags. Moreover, the crop size for the current season is expected to be on the downside at around 22-23 lakh bags against 25 lakh bags last year.

Internationally, Iran, Syria and Turkey are the other jeera producing countries apart from India. However, at present it is only the domestic produce which is catering to the world's demand as the other countries' produce will start hitting the market only after May this year.