It is more than a month to turmoil in Afghanistan. But still Indian’s commodity market is showing its post symptoms in term of high dry fruit price, textile export and inflation amid festival season in India. India and Afghanistan have foundation in the historical and cultural exchange.
In past 20 years, India has invested more than $3 billion in Afghanistan. Also, our bilateral trade estimated over $1 billion (2019-20) which largely includes Agri Commodities. Afghanistan export to India includes dried raisins, walnuts, almond, figs, pine nut, pistachios, dried apricot, etc.
Cherry, watermelon, medicinal herbs in fresh fruit category. Similarly, India’s export to Afghanistan includes Tea, Coffee, pepper, Cotton, toys, footwear, textile and other consumer able items. As the Taliban push ahead with military offensives across Afghanistan and finally takeover Afghanistan then, Indian dried fruit, textile and commodity market impacted significantly.
In India, 85% of dry fruits import from Afghanistan, thus the Taliban’s takeover has led to a spike in prices of dry fruits sold in India ahead of the festive season. This is the harvesting season for many dry fruits but because the supply chain has been throttled, we don't expect fresh stock to arrive anytime soon and situation is impacting the pocket of the common.
Also, crisis hits Textile industry, Surat’s exporters payments worth more than 100 crore stuck in beginning of August. Many consignments of textile from Surat and Delhi are done via traders or agents or third party either from Dhaka or Dubai.
Market traders facing problem with supply chain for doing export from India as the Taliban has stopped the movement of cargo through the transit routes of Pakistan. Thus, commodity market showing high pricing at present and also hug disturbance in supply chain. All these impacting on commodities like cotton, tea, coffee etc. Now, it was more than a month to turmoil in Afghanistan.
But still Indian’s commodity market showing its post symptoms in term of high dry fruit prices all across the country, huge losses in textile export consignment and rising inflation in commodities during festival season in India. News is coming across all domains which will creating urgency for government to put respective steps.
Author
Deepak G Deshmukh,
Rural Management, Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management
Development and Research (Weschool), Mumbai.