Black pepper hardens on heavy demand, ginger gains

Black pepper hardened at the spices market here today due to heavy stockist demand coupled with higher export offtake on the back of restricted arrivals from key producing belts.
Elsewhere, ginger also gained on good demand from stockist and retailers.
While, copra prices held stable in the absence of any large-scale buying activity.
Black pepper spurted by Rs 10/16 per kg to Rs 531/581 from last Saturday's closing level of Rs 521/565.
Ginger bleached and unbleached moved-up by Rs 5 per kg each to Rs 195 and Rs 205 from Rs 190 and Rs 200, respectively.
Following are today's closing rates in Rs with previous rates in brackets:

Black pepper (per kg) 531/581 (521/565),ginger bleached (per kg) 195 (190), ginger unbleached (per kg) 205 (200), copra office Alapuzha (per quintal) 7,200 (7,200),copra office Kozhikode (per quintal) 7,100 (7,100), copra Rajapur Mumbai (per quintal) 9,000 (9,000) Copra edible Mumbai (per quintal) 8,200 (8,200).