Asia Siyaka Tea Market report last week quoted the Indian Tea Association’s (ITA) chairman as saying at the Annual General Meeting of the Association that Sri Lanka’s monopoly of the Russian market should be broken.
Chairman ITA Arun A. Singh said, ‘It is time to break the Sri Lanka monopoly of the Russian market. Exports to Russia ( of Indian teas) should increase in the days to come’.
The report further said an industry delegation led by the ITA and backed by the Indian Tea Board is expected to visit Russia in May this year to promote Indian tea and take a market share from rival exporter Sri Lanka.
We were unable to seek clarification on this emerging competing element, from the Sri Lanka Tea Board, but industry sources who declined to be quoted were somewhat sceotical in their assessment that this new development could affect the Ceylon Tea brand. They said the Russian pallet was more or less attuned to Ceylon Tea as their favourite beverage. Additionally, India absorbs most of the tea produced there.
Russia imports about 180,000 tonnes of tea annually. Sri Lanka accounts for about 30 percent of these imports. Indian tea absorption in the Russian market is about 25 percent. Singh further said Ceylon Tea on retailer shelves fetches around $ 5, whereas Indian tea sells at around $3 . 50
Singh further said, ‘While Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri, are household names worldwide the lesser known names, for instance, Dooar, Terai, and Cacher, should attract stronger promotion.’
He also said it was time they pursued other markets where Ceylon Tea was strong.He said Iran and some other Middle East markets should have greater market shares of Indian teas.
Sections among tea circles here were not quite certain how they would react faced with this new threat. They said the Colombo tea auctions did not reflect panic among buyers or shippers. The tea auctions, they said, were an indicating barometer of envisaged market trends.
Last week Colombo continued to record good prices. Low growns particularly had good demand. However Westerns, Nuwara Eliyas and Uda pusellawas did not fare so well. Although year end crop returns were not at hand, tea brokering sources said 2013 was a good year for Ceylon Tea.
Source:- island.lk
No comments:
Post a Comment