The Hindu : Business : ‘Coconut oil mills badly hit’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 28, 2007
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Business

Business

‘Coconut oil mills badly hit’

Staff Reporter

Decline in prices has affected business

KOCHI: The Cochin Oil Merchants’ Association has expressed satisfaction over the continuation of online trade in coconut oil, copra and oil cake. But the industry is finding it difficult to maintain its business, according to the association president M. J. Kuriakose.

Addressing the annual session of the association, he said the industry was providing direct employment to nearly one lakh workers directly and two lakh workers indirectly. States such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh had become major competitors to Kerala because of the low labour and transportation costs there. The increased production of coconut in Tamil Nadu also led to the price crash of coconut and coconut products in Kerala.

Though there were 2000 milling units in Kerala, a major portion of them had been closed due to shortage of raw materials.

As the use of tender coconut has become popular and the profit from copra is less due to high labour charges, most of the coconuts are used for other purposes and the millers do not get enough copra for crushing, he said. He thanked the government for exempting coconut oil and oil cake from VAT. (Value-Added Tax)

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