The Union Commerce Ministry is planning to take a tea delegation to China, later this month.
The visit, scheduled to take place for four days beginning October 21, would coincide with the Tea Fair at Xiamen, China, sources said. The Tea Board of India said on its website : “the delegation is tentatively timed in the third week of October, possibly after completion of Tea Fair Xiamen (18-22).”
Enthusiastic response
Enquiries revealed that the delegation is likely to be led by the Deputy Chairman of Tea Board Arun Kumar Ray and would comprise about 35 members from the tea trade and industry. Most major tea companies as well as merchant exporters are scheduled to join the delegation. It was learnt that the proposed visit had generated very enthusiastic response from the trade and industry.
Past visits by Indian tea industry representatives have mostly been part of Food and Agricultural Organisation meetings.
The events that have been lined up for the visit this time include buyer-seller meets, showcasing Indian teas, meeting with government officials and quality inspection officials.
While India and China are among the top tea producers in the world, until recently there was little common ground between the two as China’s estimated output of 2,300 million kg comprised, mainly green tea while India is a predominant black tea producer producing about 1,200 million kg annually.
Chinese youth are now preferring black teas and black tea-based beverages and speciality teas, an industry source said adding that there are complementarities between the two countries as regards their tea consumption habits.
China imported 8.3 million kgs from India in 2017 at a value of ₹173.9 crore against 5.5 million kgs in 2016. Kenya and Sri Lanka are also present in this market. There is an emerging demand in this market said Atul Asthana, Goodricke managing director and CEO. The import price is also in the higher band of about ₹173.9 crore against an average of ₹196.6 crore. Between April to August 2018-19, exports to China stood at 3.7 million kgs against 2.5 million a year ago. This came against a backdrop of a marginal dip in India’s exports in this period to 88.9 million kgs against 89.7 million kgs a year ago.