India plans increasing tea market share in Pakistan

KARACHI (PPI) - The Indian Tea Board is considering opening up an Indian Tea Promotion Centre in Pakistan and Egypt in order to increase market share of its tea in both the countries.
The trade sources said on Friday that India is striving hard to boost its tea exports to both prominent CTC tea consuming countries since the disintegration of Soviet Union.
In the past, Indias largest chunk of tea production was used to be imported by Soviet Union. However, after losing this biggest market, Indian tea producers are looking for alternate markets such as Egypt, Pakistan and Iran besides U.K.
The Pakistani consumers had rejected the Indian CTC tea in the first place due to its poor quality and secondly the majority of Pakistanis developed strong Kenyan CTC tea while Indian tea is not only poor in quality but also has little or no aroma. In order to cope the situation, the delegations of Tea Board of India and Association of Indian Tea Producers have visited Pakistan twice lobbying among the tea packeters and blenders and local importers.
The Tea Association of Pakistan has however, suggested the Indian tea exporters to influence the tea packeters as they could increase Indian tea component in their blended teas.
Trade sources said that Indian Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh has intimated them the arrangements of setting up a Tea Promotion Centre in Cairo have already been started.
'In addition to our traditional export markets of Russia, UK and the UAE, we are making determined efforts to increase presence of Indian tea in countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. Trends are promising and very soon, the Tea Board will reopen the India Tea Promotion Centre in Cairo, the minister said in a message.
While India remains an overwhelmingly CTC-tea producing country, in some markets there was growing demand for orthodox tea due to, which the government has embarked on an ambitious programme of increasing the orthodox tea production share in total tea output from the present level of 8-9 per cent to around 12 per cent over the next three-four years, he said.
With India coming more and more under the ambit of the geographical indications (GI) legislation, the country has domestic and GIs for Darjeeling tea, Kangra Valley Tea, Assam Orthodox Tea and Nilgiri Orthodox Tea, besides a recognised logo for Dooars-Terai tea. This will ensure improved quality and traceability as well, he said in his communiqu.
He said that Indian tea is cheaper for Pakistan while it has freight advantages as both are neighbouring countries. Major tea blenders in Pakistan are already using cheap Indian tea for blending purposes, the traders said.