The Hindu : Business : Kochi maintains lead in tea auctions

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 20, 2006
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Kochi maintains lead in tea auctions

Special Correspondent

KOCHI: Kochi continues to maintain its pre-eminence among the tea auction centres in the southern parts of the country.

According to P.T. Thomas (Jr.), chairman, Tea Trade Association of Cochin, the average price realised from the Kochi auction centre was on the higher side when compared with that of Coonoor and Coimbatore.

The Kochi tea auction centre continues to maintain its pre-eminence with 49.54 per cent of the total sales as against 34.18 per cent of Coonoor and 16.28 per cent of Coimbatore.

The average price realised from Kochi during 2005 was Rs.49.40 a kg as against Rs.36.03 of Coonoor and Rs.40.91 of Coimbatore. The average price realised in South India during 2005 was Rs.42.67 a kg whereas in North India it was Rs.63.63 a kg as against Rs.47.03 and Rs.71.57 a kg respectively in 2004. This throws light on the fact that the prices fetched by North Indian tea fell by 11.1 per cent and South Indian tea by 9.3 per cent. Addressing members of the Tea Trade Association here on Tuesday, Mr. Thomas said the scenario was just beginning to look up for the tea industry after a bad patch for five years in succession.

South Indian tea production in 2005 was 227 million kg as against 167.20 million kg in 2004, an increase of 3.57 per cent. North Indian production for 2005 was 700.97 million kg as against 634.5 million kg in 2004, an increase of 10.47 per cent.

With regard to the production by the tea producing States in South India, Kerala registered a production of 67.03 million kg in 2005 as against 47.80 million kg in 2004. Karnataka registered a production of 5.37 million kg in 2005 as against 5.4 million kg in 2004. Tamil Nadu registered a production of 154.60 million kg in 2005 as against 114.00 million kg in 2004.

Indian tea production stood at 927.98 million kg in 2005 as against 820.20 million kg in 2004, an increase of 13.14 per cent.

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