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India Puts Off Tea Industry Delegation Visit to Pakistan

“We have suspended all government-backed tea promotion activity in the neighbouring country. We cannot continue business as usual with Pakistan in the current political environment”, he told reporters at Cochin, the commercial capital of Kerala.

Ramesh said he had also put off his proposed visit to Pakistan in the first week of next month in the light of the recent developments.

He was scheduled to lead a high level tea industry delegation to discuss the modalities for sending tea through the Wagha border and rail route.

A decision to send the tea through the road and rail routes was taken during a meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had with Pakistan President, Asif Ali Zardari recently.

It was intended as a confidence building measure to strengthen the process of peace and reconciliation between the two countries.

“I am disappointed that the process has come to a pause. We cannot continue to have business as usual with Pakistan in the current situation. The traders will have to wait for better times”, he added.

The Indian tea industry had planned to export 15 to 20 million kilogrammess of tea to Pakistan during the current fiscal. Ramesh said that the country was trying to increase exports to Middle East. A Tea Promotion Centre will be opened in Cairo on March next year as part of this.

Egypt was an important market for Indian tea in the 1980s, when the exports touched 18 million kilogrammess. It had fallen to less than one million kilogrammes in the recent years.

Ramesh said that the exports had been rising and were expected to touch about 15 million to 20 million kilogrammes this year.

The government is also gearing to tap the Iranian market following the relaxation of regulations for tea exports.

Iran was likely to account for another 15 million to 20 million kilogrammess of Indian tea exports in this fiscal, he added.

Iraq, which accounted for 45 million kilogrammess of Indian tea exports in 2006, had seen the quantity dwindle to just two million to three million kilogrammess in 2007-08.

However, this fiscal, the exports to Iraq were once again expected to be around 20 million kilogrammess.

Stressing the need for Indian producers to expand production of Orthodox tea, Ramesh said this was essential if the country wanted to remain an important player in the tea market.

He pointed out that the traditional ‘CTC tea’ consuming countries like Russia were shifting to Orthodox tea, which accounted for a mere 85 million to 90 million kilogrammes of India’s 950 million kilogrammes tea output.

The government was targeting to increase the production to 120 million kilogrammes by the end of the 11^th five-year plan, he said.

· devasia@khaleejtimes.com