India has notified the annual quota of black beans (400,000 tonnes) imports for its financial year 2021-2022 which will start on 1 April, traders said.
India will grant the licence to their companies later. However, the exports of black bean will take time during the meantime, said an official from Myanmar Pulses, Beans and Sesame Seeds Merchants Association.
At present, the domestic bean market is positively related to the law of supply and demand. The black bean price depends on the buyers and sellers. There is no official set price, the traders stressed. The black bean is priced around K27,000 per basket in other cities than Yangon and Mandalay in March 2021.
The black bean was worth K967,500-11.57 million per tonne in early February, Bayintnaung Commodity depot’s statistics showed.
On 22 May 2020, India rapidly changed the import period of black bean (400,000 tonnes) to three months by August-end 2020 from the earlier set deadline of March 2021, prompting Myanmar’s bean body to call for an extension of the deadline, as per its official notice.
Although the bean body asked to extend the August-end deadline, India still has not responded to the request. Myanmar exported only 100,000 tonnes of black beans then, the association stated. Nevertheless, India issued a notification on 1 October 2020 to purchase 150,000 tonnes of black beans instead, and the import deadline is March 2021. The licence is equally granted for India’s companies. At present, about 50,000 tonnes of black beans are stuck in the ports.
Since 2017, India has been setting import quota on beans including black bean and pigeon peas. Therefore, the growers face difficulties to export their beans to the India market.
Myanmar has to export black bean and pigeon peas under a quota system and limit period. Consequently, there is no guarantee that we could get the prevailing market price next year, the market observers shared their opinions.
Following the uncertainty in markets of black bean and pigeon peas, the association suggested, in October-end, that the growers cultivate black-eyed bean more. — GNLM
