Tea promotion brings rich dividends to industry

by Lalin FERNANDOPULLE

Promotion of ceylon tea as a 'symbol of quality' has paid rich dividends to bring Sri Lanka tea to the fore-front of the global tea world, said Director-Promotion, Sri Lanka Tea Board, Hasitha de Alwis.

He said the promotion of Ceylon Tea linked to the lion trade mark which had been advertised for many years as a symbol of quality helped the tea industry to achieve the feat bringing the much needed foreign exchange to the country.

Sri Lanka is the fourth largest producer of tea in the world and the industry is a main foreign exchange earner and a major source of income to families.

De Alwis said Ceylon Tea fetches premium prices and added that during 2009/2010 prices were on an average of US$ 0.50 to US$ 0.75 per kilo, higher than the second best price which was obtained by Kenya.

Sri Lanka was the world's leading exporter of tea in the mid 1990s with 23 percent of total world export, but has since then been overtaken by Kenya.

"The average price of Ceylon Tea reached a historical high of US$ 3.20 per kilo in 2009 and maintained a similar price level last year. Many years of focused promotion of Ceylon Tea contributed to the favourable position", the Director said.

Sri Lanka has maintained its prestige for exports of quality tea for over a century since tea was introduced to the country by the British planter James Taylor in 1867.

He said the tea industry will focus on promoting tea in Russia/CIS and Middle East/Gulf regions this year. The new target markets for this year are China and USA.

Sri Lanka, Kenya, India and Vietnam are some main tea producers in the world. The tea sector employs over one million people on tea plantations and estates.

The humidity, cool temperature and rainfall in the country's central highlands provide a favourable climate for the production of high quality tea.

De Alwis said total tea exports last year was around 305 to 310 million kilos which is a significant achievement for the year.

The export volume of pure Ceylon Tea up to end October 2010 was 230 million kilos and with re-export of imported teas the total exports reached around 260 million kilos.

"The tea industry anticipates exports to reach around 315-320 million kilos of pure Ceylon and foreign teas this year" he said.

"Cess funds helped boost tea exports but since 2008 the funds were not received to plough back to the industry as government priorities were somewhat different.

The Cess collection last year was approximately Rs. 1.3 billion", he said.