Rangoon (Mizzima) – The prices of exportable beans in the Burmese market reached record highs mid-May, with prices of some types more than doubling year on year, merchants said. Beans are the country’s second most valuable export product by US dollar after natural gas.
The price of green gram (khayam shwe wa) reached 1.75 million Kyats (about US$1,750) per ton on May 16, compared with less than 680,000 Kyats per ton at the same time last year, according traders at Bayintnaung wholesale market,
Similarly, the high quality black gram beans were 1.2 million Kyats per ton on May 16, against 690,000 Kyats per ton year on year.
“These prices are unprecedented”, a trader at a wholesale centre on Yaytamar Street in Bayintnaung told Mizzima.
As the beans were achieving high prices in global markets, Burmese exporters were scrambling to snap them up. This factor, combined with a decline in bean production, had pushed the prices of various beans up very high, a trader said.
“Bean production has also declined in India, a trend that has driven export prices up very high,” a bean exporter said. “Because of low production … this year, export companies are competing to buy as many beans as they can.”
Although the price fluctuation of pigeon peas for export was narrower than that of the green gram and mung bean, the price has risen 40 per cent over that of the same period last year.
“I’ve never experienced such fluctuations in bean price,” an exporter said.
Last year, farmers faced losses through falling bean prices so they have attempted to substitute the loss by cultivating other crops. Some had continued to cultivate beans, but because of record high temperatures and water shortages in Burma this year, the production volume was very low, according to a bean merchant.
Among Burma’s exports, beans are second only to natural gas in annual US-dollar export earnings. But last year, because of speculation by bean merchants, the market was very weak. Prices were falling sharply and the government arrested some of the speculators.
“This year production levels of beans have been very low and the demand very high so bean prices are expected to keep rising,” a manager of a bean wholesale center from Bayintnaung Wholesale Market said.
“In this year, wholesale markets have been doing a roaring trade in beans; some exporters event went to buy beans directly from farms,” the manager said. “The demand is very high, so even if the prices decline, the rate of the decrease will be slow.”
Despite the high prices, farmers were unable to make much of a profit because of low production levels. They cannot stockpile produce and make the best price possible as they need to sell all available stock to make loan repayments, a wholesaler said.
“The farmers cannot hold the beans to sell at peak prices because they need to pay back borrowed money with interest, over a specified period,” the wholesale centre owner said. “So they have to sell their beans immediately to merchants at current prices. Even if they get high prices, they cannot make too much of a profit because of the low production levels.”
According to reports from the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, Burma earned at total of US$515 million from exporting mung bean, pigeon pea and green gram in the fiscal year from April 2009 to February this year.
