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Tea exports to pick up on healthy Chinese demand |
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Indian tea exports to Pakistan, Iran and Russia have been rising for some time and now the market for Indian tea is expanding in the Dragon Land as well. Tea Board of India officials said that exports to China is still a small fraction of the country’s outbound tea exports. Two-and-a-half to three million kg out of the total of 200 million kg of tea exports were to China during 2011-12, but exports in 2012-13 to China is expected to double that figure. Tea Board chairman has recently said that tea exports to China is picking up quickly and the optimism on the Indian side in this regard is being rewarded. “The rising trend of Indian tea exports to China is very encouraging,” he said.
Tea industry top brass in Kolkata said that opening of the K2K (Kunming to Kolkata), which is aimed at bringing together businessmen, academics and civil society activists from China’s Yunnan province and eastern India in a round-the-year contact, is also helping to promote exports to China. The forum has now started to lobby hard for a ‘land corridor’ (highway) between Kunming and Kolkata through Bangladesh and Myanmar. Once that comes up, it would also give a further boost, ensuring exports through a much shorter land router than the long sea route.
“I know this market for Indian tea is growing in China especially because our teas are used for instant tea,” said Aditya Khaitan of Mcleod Russel, one of the top Indian tea companies.
Industry analysts are of the view that the Chinese market could actually grow rather fast for India. In fact, there would be little wonder if India can sell 25 million kg of tea to China by 2015-16. Tea exports to China have been doubling every year. One reason for this, according to analysts, could be that Indian teas are also used as instant tea.
India’s tea exports to Pakistan, one of the biggest international markets for tea, have also increased substantially in 2013, as compared with 2012. Pakistan is one of the top three tea importing countries with a consumption of 220 million kg. As per statistics available, between January and December 2013, Pakistan imported 25 million kg of tea from India, compared with 20 million kg in the same period in 2012.
According to a recent Reuters report, India’s tea export to Iran is indicated to have surged by around 50 per cent in 2013 from the previous year with the sanctions-hit country increasing purchases to replenish inventory and make use of one of its few remaining payment channels. Iran is one of the biggest buyers of the country’s tea and it prefers to buy orthodox grade. Its purchases in 2013 are likely to rise to 20-21 million kg from about 13.78 million kg a year ago, worth Rs 320 crore ($53.10 million), Reuters report said. Higher orthodox purchases by Iran will help India to maintain exports at last year’s level, as overseas demand for CTC (crush-tear-curl) is weak due to cheaper supplies from Kenya.
Significantly, all these developments have taken place, when India is readying itself for the new tea season beginning April. All this will have a very positive impact as the new season begins, analysts feel. If the current situation continues in India, opening prices would be about 8-10 per cent up, or about Rs 20 a kg. Tea prices in the country have been stable after an increase of 15-20 per cent, which indicates that domestic consumption has been pretty strong, and have been growing at a rate more than the production growth rate.
On the production front, according to Tea Board statistics, output rose 9 per cent in April-December of the current financial year to 1,116.98 million kg on account of higher output in Assam and West Bengal. Production in the same period of the 2012-13 was 1,025.01 million kg. The country’s total tea output was up by 3.62 per cent at 1,135 million kg in 2012-13. Output in Assam was up 5 per cent to 607.83 million kg in April-December 2013-14, from 577.13 million kg in the year-ago period
Source : mydigitalfc.com
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