Tea output seen at all-time high

Goenka was speaking at the annual general meeting of ITA, the largest organisation of tea producers. He said tea exports were also on the way up.

"Calendar year exports for 1997 are heading towards a level of over 190 million kg, up by around 40 million kg over last year," he said. "Exports to Russia are expected to touch 80 million kg and those to the UK will increase by five million kg."

He did not say what the previous year’s exports to Russia and Britain were. S S Ahuja, chairman of the Tea Board, said India was targeting production of 1,000 million kg in its Ninth economic plan (1997-2002). "To do this, the growth rate should touch a minimum of six per cent against a current growth rate of four per cent," he said.

He said new markets had to be found with diversified and new products for achieving a target of doubling export earnings in US dollar terms.

In 1996, value-added tea exports were 44 per cent of total exports of 153.68 million kg, fetched Rs 5.38 billion ($134.5 million).

Ahuja said India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia would soon hold a meeting for benchmarking the quality of tea. He said India had to take the initiative as it was the largest tea producer. "We are in touch with Sri Lanka and Indonesia. We are holding a meeting very soon to address areas of common concern. They agree with us on setting minimum quality standards on tea." Ahuja said it would be necessary to contain domestic tea prices within affordable limits. Earlier, Goenka had hinted at a correction in domestic tea prices, in line with international prices.

"In a free market, international and domestic prices will bear a strong correlation, and it would be totally unreasonable to expect that domestic prices will stand insulated against international trends," he had said.

The Indian Tea Association said in a statement that India’s tea production was 97.2 million kg in October, compared with 94.1 million kg in the same month last year.

The statement said tea production in the 10-months ending October 31 was 686.3 million kg compared with 658.8 million kg a year earlier. Earlier this month the commerce ministry had said India exported 162.86 million kg of tea in 1996/97 (April-March) compared with 163.65 million kg the previous year.