Salt market expect to rise in post-salt season, but salt price in Mon State steady

The price of salt in Mon State is fixed although the trader expected the salt market to go up in the post-salt season, according to Mawlamyine commodity depot.
In Mon State, salt production period is December, January and February. During this period, most salt farmers will sell their raw salt to cover labour cost and other expenditures. However, the salt production in Mon State has been declining due to heavy rain in last February and April.
Besides, the salt price fetched K60-K70 per viss (a viss equals 1.6 kilogrammes) in salt production period of February and March. But, the intermittent rain pushed up the salt price at the end of April.
The local salt farmers are facing inconvenience situation that they have salt but there is no price and they have price, but there is not salt. This being so, the salt price in Mon State is inching upward after post-salt season in June, July and August, National Enlightenment Institute (NEI) estimated.
The National Enlightenment Institute (NEI) is an organization that studies the state’s economic development process.
On 22 August, the current raw salt price (normal) is K 120-130 per viss while the raw salt (pure) is K150 per viss. The current salt price has been stable for almost four months in April, May, June and July.
Annually, Mon State produces nearly 40,000 tonnes of sun-dried salt beyond magnesium chloride (MgCl2), iodized salt (I2) and table salt (NaCl).
There are about 5,000 salt-pitches in Mon State. Among them, nearly 4,000 acres of salt-pitches produce nearly 40,000 tonnes of salt and domestic salt consumption is 10,000 tonnes. The 2019-2020 statistics showed 14 iodine salt processing plants and one factory each for magnesium chloride (MgCl2) and table salt (NaCl) production, with the production capacity of 60 tonnes of magnesium chloride, 204 tonnes of table salt and 12,132 tonnes of iodized salt.—NN/GNLM