Drop in export of safety matches

Export of safety matches suffered a drop, owing to uncertainty in market. Currency fluctuation is one of the concerns and export remains price competitive in world markets. Around 80 per cent of exports of match boxes in bundles would normally be shipped to African countries. With high production cost which included expensive raw materials and power tariff, the stakeholders could hardly compete in the export market. Pakistan was emerging as a competitor for export of matches. Since matches could be manufactured at low cost, its market was stable. In the recent past, many export orders had been diverted to Pakistan. Sources in an exporting company stressed the need for inclusion of India into the incremental incentive scheme for safety matches, which became the focus product. Besides, many agencies from Africa had been contemplating on adopting manufacturing techniques to launch production on their own.