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Kohinoor Mandal

Kolkata , Feb. 18

THE Indian tea industry has managed to register a nominal growth in exports during 2004 compared to 2003, but net exports have fallen sharply.

According to figures release by the Tea Board, exports during 2004 were 177 million kg against 173 mkg in 2003, a growth of 2.31 per cent.

A fortnight ago, the industry had expressed the fear that exports would be lower than the 2003.

Hence, the Tea Board's statistics have come as a major relief, though the figures are only provisional.

While Indian tea exports in 2001 were 201 mkg, they dropped to 173 mkg in 2003.

However, net exports (total exports minus total imports) of tea suffered greatly because tea imports jumped by 328 per cent - from seven mkg in 2003 to 30 mkg in 2004.

Industry sources said this was of greater concern than the nominal growth in exports.

"Exports can suffer here and there but the fall in net exports means that the teas that were exported from India were actually produced in some other country and re-exported from here as Indian teas," sources said.

Though the Tea Board is yet to declare the break-up of export statistics for the January-December 2004 period, sources said that the biggest let-down for the country were Russia, Pakistan and Iran.

In 2003, tea exports to Pakistan were 7.4 mkg. It was expected to increase further but it ended somewhere around 3.5 mkg. For Russia the story is the same.

Industry sources feel that exports had suffered because of the Union Government's delay in announcing the incentive scheme to shift to orthodox tea production from CTC teas.

"The producers had asked for some relief from the Government for increasing orthodox tea production but nothing had materialised. Once we get benefits and orthodox production increases, we will gain in global market share," Mr Dhanuka recently told Business Line. A large parts of the tea drinking market currently prefers orthodox tea over CTC. A decade or so ago, it was the other way round. India produces approximately 850 mkg of tea, out of which 70 per cent is CTC and the rest orthodox.

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