Date:06/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/06/stories/2008080651961800.htm

Business

Tea exports drop by 32.8 m kg

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: The final figures of tea exports in 2007-08 showed a decline of 32.83 million kg as compared to the previous fiscal, according to statistics finalised by the Tea Board of India.

Union Commerce Ministry officials said that a wide difference between the estimates and the final figures had been observed. This was primarily due to non-submission of export information by tea exporters at the time of estimation of monthly exports for different months of the year.

In this context, it was pointed out that the North Indian exporters seemed to be more reluctant in furnishing monthly export information. The Tea Board figures showed that during calendar 2007, tea exports stood at 178.5 million kg by volume and Rs. 1,810.11 crore by value with a unit price realisation of Rs. 101.26 a kg.

For the financial year, this figure stood at 185.32 million kg of export which earned a foreign exchange of Rs. 1,888.68 crore with a unit price of Rs. 101.91 kg.

Explaining the decline, Tea Board officials said that this could be attributed mainly to lower exports to Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya, the U.K. and Afghanistan.

India had pinned lot of hopes on the Pakistan market which the Union Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, now describes as a ‘yo-yo’ market. Officials said that it had turned out to be a market which moved in tandem with the Kenyan tea industry’s condition.

However, exports increased to countries like Russia, Egypt, Iran, Sri Lanka, Germany, the U.S. and the UAE.