The Hindu : Business : Tata Tea mulls project in China

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 22, 2006

Business

Business

Tata Tea mulls project in China

Special Correspondent

To exit plantation business in north India and Sri Lanka

KOLKATA: Tata Tea Ltd (TTL) is exploring its options for setting up a greenfield project in China, Vice-Chairman, R. K. Krishnakumar, said. He said the company had also decided to "step back from plantation in a phased manner".

Mr. Krishnakumar, who, along with Tata Steel Managing Director, B. Muthuraman was here in connection with the proposed Tata Cancer Centre, said just as it had exited the plantation sector in south India, it was now planning to replicate and improve on the same employee cooperative model for its gardens in north India. "Plantation is best managed by employees." he said, adding that moving away from plantations was expected to boost TTL's profitability.

It may be mentioned here that TTL's tea estates in Munnar were transferred in 2004-05 to an employees' cooperative called Kanan Devan Hills Plantation Company Private Ltd. TTL has gardens in Assam and Dooars with a total output of about 27 million kg. To a question on Watawala Plantataion Ltd., TTL's joint venture in Sri Lanka, Mr. Krishnakumar said there were plans to exit from the plantation sector there too.

On the proposed China venture, he said this was likely to be in the derived tea business. However, the proposal was yet to be okayed by the TTL board. On future acquisitions, he said globally TTL needed to expand in the beverage space and it was looking at several options where "certain specific constituents of tea (like antioxidants) could be extracted". He declined to mention the countries being scouted for possible acquisitions by TTL.

On Indian Hotels, he said while any adverse impact of the present bird flu threat was yet to be felt, the industry was sure to bounce back fast.

"This (bounce back) has happened every time in the past," he said adding that right now there was great pressure on hotel rooms as the sector was growing in sync with the economy.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail