CAMPCO hails Centre's move to hike floor price for areca import

Mangalore, August 21: The multi-state cooperative - The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (CAMPCO) Ltd has welcomed a move by the union government to hike the minimum import price of areca-nut from Rs 35 to Rs 75 per kilogram.

Addressing a media conference here on Tuesday CAMPCO Konkodi Padmanabha termed the notification by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) dated August 14, which increased the minimum price for import, as a an Independence Day gift to farmers. Campco was demanding the Government to increase minimum floor price on import for so many years, he said.

Stating that the government's move would give a major boost to the local areca-nut growers, he said that it is the vision of Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Anup K Pujari and the facilitating role played by former minister RV Deshpande which has bailed out the areca-nut growers.

In a recent reply to the Member of Parliament from Mangalore, the Union Commerce Ministry had stated that arecanut is being imported from other countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia. It had stated that 76,041.39 tonnes of arecanut worth Rs 258.82 crore were imported from different countries in 2010-11.

Many farmers then stated that this worked out to average price of Rs 33.96 a kg in the market, which is below the minimum price for import then. The average price of import from Indonesia was Rs 22.34 and from Thailand was Rs 25.48 during that year.