Black Tea inroads to China

By Ravi Ladduwahetty - Ceylon Today

Exporters for Fairs in Seoul, California and Johannesburg

Ceylon Finance Today: Sri Lanka's Black Tea exports into the Chinese market will receive a major boost with the Sri Lanka Tea Board deciding to establish an office in the Chinese capital of Bejing.

"This is going to be a very positive move where we could build on the present 4 million kilos of Black Tea that we are exporting to China where we will open the tea promotions office within Embassy premises," Sri Lanka Tea Board Chairman, Y.G. Wijeratne told Ceylon FT yesterday.

He also said that the Sri Lankan Black Teas have a premium demand in China, despite China being a green tea grower. We will be exporting all seven varieties of Black Tea to China which are grown in the seven tea growing areas of Nuwara Eliya, Dimbulla, Uda Pussellawa, Uva, Sabaragamuwa and Ruhuna. He also expressed confidence that the export volume to China would increase by 50% by end 2016.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan tea exporters will also participate in three overseas fairs. They will be the Food Expo in the Korean capital of Seoul and the World Tea Expo in California in May and the Saifex food exhibition in South African city of Johannesburg in June. This is also expected to set off the losses which are prevailing in the existing markets – Russia, Iran and Turkey due to turmoil in those markets.

There would be three Sri Lankan exporters, each who will be participating in each of the three exhibitions and the Sri Lanka Tea Board would be subsidizing each of these three exporters by 50% for the space and the stall construction, Wijeratne said.

Meanwhile, the letters of appointment to the two advertising agents who have been selected for the global promotions, for which approval have received from the Cabinet of Ministers will be going in the next fortnight. They are Phoenix Ogilvy for the creative work of the global campaign and Grey First for the PR campaign where the two agencies will be making their recommendations to the Sri Lanka Tea Board.

It will be the Sri Lanka Tea Board which will be deciding whether the media buying would be directly or whether it would be through the agencies which, also would be on a case- by case basis, the Chairman said.