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Over the past three decades, Vipan Kumar imports Himalayan pink salt from Pakistan to sell in India.
The 50 -year -old merchant based in Amritsar in Punjab, the Sikhs Spiritual Center in India, told Al Jazeera that the recent general ban on trade between the following two countries The massacre of 26 people, mainly Indian tourists, in Pahalgam to the cashmere administered by the Indians In April, this trade has stridged after New Delhi prohibited imports from all Pakistani goods, including those transported to third countries.
Kumar says that he generally sold 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes of pink salt per quarter. “The beneficiary margin is very thin, but the company is still possible due to bulk sales. But the prohibition has completely interrupted the activity of pink salt. We do not know when the situation would become normal,” he told Al Jazeera.
Himalayan pink salt has a pinkish shade due to a trace of minerals, including iron, and is used in cooking, decorative lamps and spa treatments. The Hindus also prefer to use this salt during their religious fast because it is a non -marine salt.
Extract in Pakistan
The Himalayan pink salt is extracted from the Khewra salt mine in the province of Punjab, Pakistan, the second largest salt mine in the world after the Sifto salt mine in Ontario, Canada, and located about 250 kilometers (155 miles) of the city of Lahore, which sometimes lends its name to pink salt – Lahori Namak, which is Hindire for salt.
The salt mine contains approximately 82 million metric tonnes of salt and 0.36 million metric tonnes are extracted each year. About 70% of salt is used for industrial purposes and the rest for edible use.
“The mine is very picturesque and attracts several thousand tourists each year,” a journalist who lives near the mine told Al Jazeera.
He has about 30 salt processing units where the huge rocky salt rocks are mined by hand and loaded on trucks before being sent, he said.
Salt is exported in a raw form to India, where importers treat, brde and pack it for sale.
Price swell
India mainly depends on Pakistan for this pink salt.
But after the Pahalgam massacre, India announced the end of all trade with Pakistan, which made the reversal of the ban. The trade judgment was part of a series of diplomatic and economic measures of tit-for-tat that the neighbors took one against each other before engaging in an intense exchange of missiles and four-day drones which brought them at the dawn of a full-fledged war. On May 10, they withdrew from the edge, accepting a truce. However, the commercial ban remains in place.
Salt traders in India told Al Jazeera that the current import break had started to hinder their business as prices are starting to increase.
“It has been just over a month since the announcement of the ban, and prices have already increased,” said Gurveen Singh, a merchant based in Amritsar, who blamed traders with existing actions for having sold them at higher prices.
“The salt that was sold on the retail market for 45 rupees at 50 rupees per kilogram [$0.53-$0.58] Before the ban is sold for at least 60 rupees per kilogram [$0.70]”Said Singh.
In some places, the price is even higher. In Kolkata this week, pink salt was sold on markets between 70 rupees and 80 rupees per kilogram [$0.82-$0.93].
“We do not know when the situation comes back to normal. There is a complete crisis once stocks are exhausted,” he said.
The rates, however, increase even more on the other side of India to the east due to the transport cost committed to send the amritsar salt.
Kolkata merchants told Al Jazeera that salt prices had increased by 15 to 20% in the city, but that it has not yet embarrassed demand.
“Himalayan rocky salt remains in large demand throughout the year, especially during festivals when people stay quickly and prefer pink salt to sea salt produced in India,” said Sanjay Agarwal, a private company manager who treats pink salt.
Dinobondhu Mukherjee, a salt trader in Kolkata, said the government should seek an alternative country to get this salt. “Relations between the two countries are generally tense, which affects trade. Our government should seek alternative countries to get salt so that the supply chain is never disrupted,” Mukherjee told Al Jazeera.
Pakistani exporters said, however, that the Indian ban would have a “positive impact” on their profession. Indian merchants, they said, mark their salt as their own to sell on the international market at higher prices.
“The recent ban would help us to develop more because it wiped competition from India,” Fazan Panjwani, chief of Karachi, told Al Jazeera.
“Without a doubt, India is a large market and has a lot of potential, but we want to send salt by making value added and not in raw form. Our salt is already in large demand on a global scale,” he said.
Lower trade
Trade between the two countries has decreased since the 2019 attack on the security forces in Pulwama to the cashmere administered by the Indians in which 40 members of the security personnel were killed. In response, India revoked the status of the non -discriminatory market – better known as the most favored nation status (MFN) – which it had granted in Pakistan. He also imposed heavy rates of 200% on imports from Pakistan.
According to the Ministry of Commerce of India, the country’s exports to Pakistan from April 2024 to January 2025 amounted to $ 447.7 million, while Pakistan exports to India during the same period were $ 420,000.
In 2024, India imported approximately 642 tonnes of pink salt, which was much lower than 74,457 metric tonnes imported in 2018 – largely due to high prices.
Before the last ban, India’s main exports to Pakistan included cotton, organic chemicals, spices, food products, pharmaceuticals, plastic items and dairy products. India normally imports copper articles, raw cotton, fruits, salt, minerals and specialized chemicals from Pakistan.
“The implementation of heavy work had increased the price of importing salt from 3.50 rupees [$0.041] per kilogram at 24.50 rupees [$0.29] By kilogram in 2019, even if the salt was sent from the third country like Dubai, “said the Kumar merchant in Al Jazeera.
“However, that had not had an impact on our activities, because the demand was too high, and the buyers were ready to pay the price. But the government, this time, also prohibited the entry of Pakistani goods from any third-party country, which brought the supply to the star,” he said.
An unusual industry that is injured by the ban – lamps made from Himalayan pink rock salt which are used as decorative lights and even unsuccessful claims to be air purifiers.
“We must look for an alternative country if the supply of rock salt does not come from Pakistan,” said the founder of Global Aroma Deep, who uses a single name. “Lamp prices had already increased after the taxation of a 200% rate in 2019, and purchases from any other country will lead to a new cost escalation.”
