Kochi: For years, traditionally India's competition in cashew kernels was from Brazil, which was the birthplace of the product, but the recent trend shows that Vietnam is emerging as a major competitor in this sector, according a top official of the Cashew Export Promotion Council (CEPC) of India.

Labour in Vietnam was cheaper and the productivity was also more, besides they have the advantage of modern processing centres which enabled that country to become a major competitor during the last ten years, Sasi Varma, secretary CEPC said.

The export of cashew kernels witnessed a quantity wise improvement in 2001-02 according to provisional estimates and around 97,000 to 98,000 MT was exported as against 89,155 MT valued at Rs.2049.6 crores in the previous year.

However, though quantity wise there was an improvement in value terms it came down to about Rs 1776 crores in 2001-02, he said adding now there were certain good signs and the prices may further improve.

The United States continues to be our major buyer of cashew kernels and according to provisional estimates they had imported about 48,161 MT valued at Rs 884 crores during 2001-02, comprising almost 45 to 50 per cent of our total exports.

Netherlands was the second largest importer of cashew kernels from India with an intake of 13,915 MT valued at Rs 254 crores compared to 16069 MT valued at 380.1 crore in 2000-01, he said.

Varma said besides America, about 25 per cent of cashew kernels were being exported to European countries while South East Asian countries accounts for 5000 MT and Middle East countries 3000 MT.

Inspite of all efforts the production of raw cashew nut in the country remained stagnant due to various reasons he said adding our raw cashew nut production was estimated at 3,50,000 MT per annum and our imports were about 2,50,000 MT.

According to trade estimates Kerala's share in the raw cashew nut production was less than one lakh tonnes while Maharashtra's contribution was about 1,25,000 MT, he said.

The domestic production of raw cashew nuts needed to be stepped up to meet the requirement of the industries, he said pointing out that the existing land ceiling laws and denial of plantation status to cashew heavily deterred taking up large- scale cultivation on plantation basis even in suitable wastelands.

The council had taken up the matter with the state government in this regard and it had assured to accord plantation status to cashew, he said.

He said USA, Republic of Korea, Japan, UK and Belgium were the major buyers of cashew nut shell oil from India. It had exported 2,246 MT valued at Rs 3.89 crore during 2000-01.

The provisional estimates for 2001-02 indicated about 1,814 MT valued at Rs 4.91 crores had been exported, he added.

He said the council had entrusted with the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, a project for developing a technology for commercial manufacture of value added products including cashew butter, cashew kernel oil and another project with Regional Research Laboratory, Thiruvananthapuram, for the development of resins from cashew nut shell liquid.

He said the sales tax on raw cashew nuts was reduced by the state government from 8 per cent to 4 per cent in the last year as a result of the continued efforts by the council. The industry's demand was to totally do away with the tax, he said.

In Karnataka, the government refunds the sales tax on raw cashew nuts to 100 per cent export oriented units when used for export processing, he said.

PTI