Scripting a survival
Zee’s founding family plots a twist in the tale and stays in control
Continuing to reiterate their concern over mandatory routing of 50 per cent of the tea through auctions, United Planters Association of South India has said that “it is a retrograde step in the free market open economy that the country adopted since 1991”.
At the end of the day a business must have the liberty of deciding to whom it wants to sell its product and which platform it would prefer to use, which is in line with the Government’s current policy on Ease of doing Business, Prashant Bhansali, Upasi president said in recently concluded AGM.
He also voiced concern over the move to stop the incentive scheme for orthodox tea production, saying that it would further hamper the export performance as a large majority of exported tea are orthodox varieties. Orthodox teas are cost intensive compared to CTC and unless there is some financial support, it is difficult to enthuse producers to change over.
Declining price trend
This scheme must be continued as the Tea Board recommended ₹7 per kg to establish the earlier pre-eminence of India as the supplier of high quality and competitively priced orthodox tea to the international market, he added.
Meanwhile the Kochi tea auction witnessed a declining price trend as container shortage and rising freight cost continues to hit the exports of orthodox leaf. There was a subdued export demand and the sold quantity was only 66 per cent out of 2,68,438 kg. The market also witnessed heavy withdrawals due to low bid or lack of bid.
CTC leaf market was also lower and witnessed a fair quantity of withdrawal. The quantity offered was 36,000 kg.
In CTC dust, good liquoring tea prices were lower following a subdued demand from blenders, upcountry buyers and local buyers. The quantity offered was 8,74,589 kg and only 66 per cent was sold. Orthodox dust witnessed a lot of withdrawals and only 19 per cent was sold out of the quantity of 18,000 kg offered.