Kerala - Kochi   

`Sri Lankan tea has nothing to do with crisis in estates'

Special Correspondent

Exports tea only for value-addition, says chamber chief

KOCHI: Sri Lankan tea is no threat to the High Range tea and it has nothing to do with the crisis in Kerala's tea plantations that followed the tea price crash, according to Nawaz Rajabdeen, president of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka.

Mr. Rajabdeen, who was here recently as part of a Sri Lankan trade delegation, told The Hindu that since Sri Lankan tea was of high-quality and hence high-priced, it could in no way help depress Indian teas.

He was referring to a complaint commonplace in Kerala that the cheap import of Sri Lankan tea in the wake of the Indo-Sri Lanka free trade agreement was a major reason for the crash of tea prices.

Mr. Rajabdeen said Sri Lanka exported tea to India only for blending and re-exporting. These teas were value-added (such as adding jasmine flavour) and were sold abroad at a high price, often four or five times more than the normal tea.

He said Kerala should shore up its marketing strategies to sell tea on international markets.

"How you project and position your product on the global market make all the difference," he said.

He suggested that Kerala tea should go in for geographical identification and should be positioned on the market as an exclusive `Kerala tea' or `High Range tea' (as is in the case of Darjeeling Tea).

Vietnam pepper

However, Mr. Rajabdeen agreed that cheap Vietnam pepper, routed to India through Sri Lanka, had depressed the price of Indian pepper, mostly produced in Kerala. Vietnam pepper was very cheap and had flooded the Sri Lankan market too.

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