Govt allows exports of additional 400 tons pulses

KATHMANDU, Feb 9: At a time when prices of pulses are soaring in the market due to supply deficit, the government has allowed private traders to export additional 400 tons of pulses to international markets.



The Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS) has decided to permit the export of 100 tons each of Mas Dal, Khesari Dal, Gahat Dal and soybean. Earlier, the ministry had allowed the companies to export a maximum of 15,000 tons within four months. [break]



Anil Thakur, director general of Department of Commerce (DoC) told myrepublica.com that interested companies have been asked to declare their stocks of the said pulse items by Wednesday. “After assessing the quantity of pulses in their stock, we will fix the export volume that can be exported to international market,” Thakur said.



According to the Department of Commerce (DoC), about one and a half dozen pulse mills have shown their interests for the export of pulses.



The government has already permitted private traders to export 750 tons of lentils. State owned Salt Trading Corporation (STC) and National Trading Ltd (NTL) have been permitted to export 2,500 tons of lentils each.



The government imposed the ban on export of pulses, to tame the prices in the domestic market. Nepali traders have been exporting pulses to India, Bangladesh and some European countries. But bowing to the pressure of the private traders, the Ministry had lifted than ban from December 17 to 20 to facilitate imports of pulses. STC and NTL received permission to export pulses on January 11.



Nepal had exported pulses worth Rs 314.8 million and Rs 1.45 billion to India and other countries respectively during fiscal year 2007/08.

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