India predicts China and EU grape exports to grow up to 20%
"The exportable grape production is expected to go up this year. Nashik, which supplies around 80% grapes, has 55,000 hectares area under cultivation. Of this, the area registered for exports this year is 33,000 hectares, compared with 27,000 hectares last year," said Ashok Sharma, president and chief executive of the Agri Business vertical of Mahindra & Mahindra.
Though the onset of a fully-fledged season has been delayed by two to three weeks due to the snowfall in Europe and the onset of winter in the growing state of Maharashtra, the country has already shipped 47 containers to Europe as of January 12.
Indian exporters are expecting to get more orders as Chile has shifted its focus towards the USA and Canada. According to Mahindra's estimate, around 6,500-7,000 containers will be exported to Europe, up from the 6,200 containers last year.
"Also, there will be an increase of around 20-25% in the number of containers from India to China," said Sharma.
On the price front, Sharma said, "Due to significant demand in Europe, prices will stay firm up to the first week of of Feb and after that they will normalize. The returns to growers and exporters will be impacted but due to availability of additional volume of fruits, export volume will either remain the same or may even see a marginal increase over last year."
source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
