Govt lifts export curb on bamboo charcoal

The government on Friday said it has lifted the ''export prohibition'' on bamboo charcoal, a move that would facilitate optimum utilisation of raw bamboo and higher profitability for the domestic bamboo industry.

''All the bamboo charcoal made from bamboo obtained from legal sources are permitted for export subject to proper documentation/certificate of origin proving that the bamboo used for making charcoal has been obtained from legal sources,'' read the notification issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), which comes under the administrative control of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, was persistently requesting the Centre to lift the export restriction on bamboo charcoal.

KVIC chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena had written to the Minister of Commerce and Industries Piyush Goyal, seeking to lift the export restriction on bamboo charcoal for the larger benefit of the bamboo industry.

''Bamboo charcoal has a huge demand in the international market and lifting of export prohibition by the government will enable the Indian bamboo industry to tap this opportunity and exploit the huge global demand. This will also ensure optimum utilisation of bamboo waste and thus contribute to the prime minister's vision of waste to wealth,'' Saxena said after the decision.

The domestic bamboo industry, at present, is grappling with extremely high input cost owing to inadequate utilisation of bamboo.

In India, bamboo is mostly used in manufacturing of incense, wherein a maximum of 16 per cent is used for making bamboo sticks while the remaining 84 per cent of bamboo goes waste. As a result, the input cost for round bamboo sticks is in the range of Rs 25,000 to Rs 40,000 per MT as against the average bamboo cost of Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per MT.

However, export of bamboo charcoal would ensure complete utilisation of the bamboo waste and thus make the business more profitable. Bamboo charcoal for barbeque, soil nutrition and as a raw material for manufacturing activated charcoal has great potential in international markets like the USA, Japan, Korea, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France and the UK.

Earlier, in order to create more employment in bamboo-based industries, particularly in incense industry, KVIC, in 2019 had requested the central government for policy changes in import on raw incense and import duty on round bamboo sticks that were heavily imported from Vietnam and China.

Subsequently, in September 2019, the commerce ministry ''restricted'' the import of raw incense and in June 2020, the finance ministry increased the import duty on round bamboo sticks.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)