Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Tea Season To Witness Shortfall Production In 2009 - Sep 24, 2008

Kolkata: The tea season due from April 2009 will begin with a shortfall of at least 75-80 million kg (mkg) of tea, according to India Tea Association (ITA) and also Chairman of Consultative Committee of Plantation Associations (CCPA). This will happen because both domestic and export demands for tea are steadily increasing even as the output remains virtually stagnant. At the current consumption growth of 3.5 per cent yearly, the domestic demand will increase by an additional 35-38 mkg and the export in the current year too would be up by another 35-40 mkg. An inevitable fallout of it will be price increase. More important, the bad phase via which the industry passed in the past seven to eight years left majority of the producers virtually bleeding. The present price increase therefore was only helping the industry to pay off their debts, clear their past liabilities and begin working on modernisation

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