Tea exporters highlight industry woes

While renewing its call for the liberalization of the country’s tea industry, the Tea Exporters’ Association (TEA) yesterday highlighted a number of issues plaguing the industry, urging the authorities for swift assistance to arrest the downfall of the 150-year-old industry. 
The TEA pointed out although the decline in tea production last year and during the first quarter of this year is largely attributed to the adverse weather conditions prevailed in the country, the overall downward trend in the tea production is due to a number of other factors including aging tea bushes, non-availability of an alternate weedicide and low application of fertilizer.

The TEA noted that while the global tea industry has grown steadily over the years, Sri Lanka’s tea industry has declined considerably.  
“Sri Lanka crossed the 300-million kilogramme mark in tea production in the year 2000 and even after 16 years, the country has not been able to reach the 350-million kilogramme mark as yet,” the TEA said in a statement. 
Sri Lanka’s share in world tea production has also now come down to 6 percent from 10.5 percent in 2000.
Meanwhile, the industry association also criticized the delay in carrying out the proposed global promotional campaign and was also critical of the higher taxes and fees imposed on them. 
Further, expressing concerns in the negative developments in the Middle Eastern region, the top buyer of Ceylon Tea, the TEA pointed out the need to liberalize the industry to gain market share in the developed markets such as Europe and America to come up with competitive pricing as tea retailing in these countries is controlled by large supermarket chains.  
In light of this, the TEA urged the government to appoint a committee to look into deregulating the tea industry to enhance its competitiveness, which is currently the most regulated export industry in the country.