Imposition of Minimum Export Price on Onion Export

Minimum Export Price (MEP) of Onion is fixed by an Inter-ministerial Committee (IMC), in terms of the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Prices held on 10th June, 2000. The IMC is chaired by Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce. This committee takes stock of the arrival of onion and modal prices prevailing in the important production and consumption centres and decides the MEP of onion accordingly.

In their meeting held on 13th June, 2014, the Inter-Ministerial Committee observed that the modal rates in the producing mandies have shown increase during 2nd week of June, 2014 and the retail and wholesale prices in four Metropolitan cities have also shown steady increase as compared to prices prevailing on 1st May, 2014. The Committee as such observed that there is an urgent need to calibrate exports in order to augment domestic supplies so that domestic prices do not overshoot in near future. Therefore, the IMC decided to fix the MEP at USD 300 per MT FOB.

Imposition of MEP on onion export is expected to help in arresting the rise in prices and stabilizing the onion prices in the domestic markets and balance the interests of both farmers and consumers.