Top 5 Pulses Importing Countries in the World
India, Turkey, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Egypt are five top pulse importing countries. Big chunk of India’s agri commodities imports comprises of lentils (pulses) and edible oil imports. India along with Pakistan and Turkey drive global pulses import business and 59% share of total global imports of pulses was shared by these three in 2020.
India has lately tried to decrease its dependence on imported lentils but it has to cover some distance before it can decide to stop pulses imports. Leading exporters of lentils are Canada and Australia. In 2020 increase in lentils imports by Egypt was twofold.
India, largest importer of pulses
India still depends heavily on lentil imports. Despite all possible efforts by government, domestic production of pulses can’t match the pace of increase in lentils demand in India and india has to rely on Australia and Canada for its domestic lentils consumption. Production decline by 35% in Canada in 2021 compelled India to think about other suppliers like Russia and Kazakhstan. Shipments from Canada and Australia gets regularly delayed because of global container crisis, on the other hand 25-30 days transit time for Kazak and Russian consignments is far shorter compared to transit time for Canadian consignments. Apart from Kazakhstan and Russia, India has decided to import lentils (tur) from Myanmar and Malawi. Import of urad, tur and moong were moved from restricted to open category due to anticipated shortfall in domestic production. 10 to 12 percent of its pulses consumption is fulfilled by virtue of imports. Pulse importers can rely on online B2B procurement platform tradologie.com for online import of lentils.
· Lentils import from Russia allowed
In 2021 government of India permitted masur imports from Russia in light of skyrocketing prices of masur in domestic market. This was done to reduce dependence of india on Canada and Australia for lentils imports and result was instant in the form of 2.5% decline in prices of imported masoor.
· Import tariff on lentils reduced
As a boon to Australian farmers Indian government has reduced import duty of lentils to zero providing golden opportunity to them to get rid of their bumper harvest of lentils but tariff on chickpeas is still in place and is quite prohibitive. This tariff revision seems to be direct result of visit of Australian trade minister to India. This decision by India benefits Australia in another way, it reduces the need for prolonged storage of lentils and frees silos for other crops. This decision of Indian government has pleased Australian farmers but shocked Indian farmers as they were hoping to earn premium on their rabi lentils crop. Indian government is refuting allegations that reduction on tariff will affect Indian farmers adversely as India had to import lentils anyways because of domestic production shortfall compared to consumption.
· India exports pulses too
India has been exporting pulses quite successfully and right now Indian pulses exporters are demanding cash subsidy to compensate farmers for loses on account of chickpea prices slipping below MSP and also giving fillip to pulses exports from India. Pulses traders can use tradologie.com next generation B2B procurement platform to export bulk pulses from India.