Pepper markets continued to stay hot

GK Nair KOCHI, APRIL 7: Pepper markets continued to stay hot on Thursday on strong demand amid tight supply. Those buyers who had postponed buying hoping the prices would fall after mid-March have started covering now and that has strengthened the demand. At the same time, availability remains squeezed as those having the material were holding back, market sources told BusinessLine. On the terminal market, 11 tonnes of pepper from the plains and the high ranges were traded at ₹670 and ₹690 a kg respectively. Sellers were quoting ₹700 a kg for Rajkumari high bulk density pepper and ₹690 for high range material. Wayanad’s Pulpally and Bathery pepper was quoted at ₹685 a kg. Meanwhile, 40 tonnes of exchange released pepper were traded at ₹680 a kg and end users in Delhi, Maharashtra and some other states were covering. Further buying interest has prompted the sellers to raise the price to ₹690, they said. Spot prices went up by ₹500 a quintal to ₹66,800 (ungarbled) and ₹69,800 (garbled). April and May contracts on the IPSTA also increased by ₹1,000 a quintal to ₹70,000 and ₹69,000 respectively. June contract remained unchanged at ₹67,000. Export prices stayed unchanged following weakening of the rupee at $10,800 a tonne c&f for Europe and $11,050 a tonne c&f for the US.