Monthly Publication

During August 2015, the Pepper Price Index decreased by 2.93 points for black Pepper and 0.78 points for white Pepper (Table 1) .The composite price of black Pepper decreased by 0.89 % from US $ 9447 in July 2015 to US $ 9363 in August 2015, while that of white Pepper decreased by 0.24% from 13,721 per MT in July 2015 to US $ 13,688 per MT in August 2015 (Table 2)

The Composite price movement of Pepper for the year 2010 to 2015 in US$/MT as above can be seen that from January 2010 till October 2011 , Pepper price has been continuously on upward movement. From November 2011 onwards price started slightly moving down for few months and started consolidating till July 2014. After August 2014 onwards prices has been moving upwards for both black and white Pepper. Again from January 2015 onwards till July it has been range bound around USD9, 000 per MT for black Pepper, but white Pepper is still moving up.

Pepper market continued showing consolidation in price movement for the month August 2015 and prices slowed down compared to the month of July 2015.At the prevailing prices the market has seen better demand of Pepper. Based on the increase in demand of the Pepper, supply of Pepper in the producing countries remained stable. Presently amongst producing countries, Indonesia harvesting of Pepper is in its peak in Lampung province and Banka harvesting of Pepper has started, it is expected to be good harvest this year. In this year, it is reported to have better crop and harvesting to be better compared to previous year. Other sources of White Pepper are Kalimantan and Sulawesi which would start harvesting in the coming months. The concern is of quality of produce because of prevalent hot and dry weather in the Pepper producing area of Indonesia. Malaysia harvesting is in its almost last phase. Brazil harvesting season has already started, and trade is eagerly waiting for the produce of Pepper.

In dollar terms average local price of Malabar black Pepper decreased by 1.55%, Lampung black Pepper decreased by 4.33 % ,Sarawak black Pepper decreased by 7.68% ,Vietnam Pepper decreased by 7.36% , Sri-Lanka decreased by 5.07% compared to the month of July 2015 as per Table 3. Similarly, FOB price has also gown down except Vietnam is stable as per Table 4 .Fall in the price of local white Pepper price is also noticed in Muntok , Sarawak and Vietnam grade white Pepper as per Table 5. FOB price of white Pepper Muntok has slightly fallen, whereas price of Sarawak and Vietnam grade has strengthened as per Table 6.

On the basis of above price movements, it is seen that price has started consolidating in the month of August 2015, with not much of volatility in the market during the month. As month of August is still the harvesting period of Indonesia and Brazil, still to come up with good news for the upcoming month.

Black Pepper and white Pepper price prevailed in local market are shown in Table 3 and 5 respectively, whereas FOB price of Black and white Pepper in table 4 and Table 6 respectively.