With the price of onions increasing, traders at the APMC market in Vashi have imported around 600 tonnes of onions from Iran, which reached the JNPT port on Monday. While some of them have been taken to the APMC market, some will be taken to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
“Around 25 tonnes of the 600 tonnes have been brought to the APMC market. Those have been sold at ₹51 per kg in wholesale while the Indian onions are priced between ₹60 and ₹70,” Abdul Razak Memon, a trader from APMC market, said.
Mr. Memon said more onions are expected from Egypt by the last week of October. “We had ordered the onions from Iran around 25 days ago. The process from Iran is slow and the payment methods are also tedious. Instead, we would be importing onions from Egypt. Onions from Turkey are also imported. This time, the rate there is also at the higher side and hence, we are going with Egypt,” he said.
He said that last year, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) too had got onions from Turkey.
On Monday, around 79 vehicles with 13,722 sacks of Indian onions entered the APMC market. They are sold up to ₹80 per kg in retail.
According to traders, the monsoon and loss of crops have led to the rise in the onion price.
