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High price of tea keeps foreign buyers away

TTAB chairman tells

NURUL ALAM
BANGLADESH must raise yield of tea with the reduction of production cost in a bid to boost its export, Tea Traders Association of Bangladesh (TTAB) Chairman Feroz Ahmed said.
"If we can not increase tea output to make its price competitive with other regional tea producing countries, it will be difficult to attract foreign buyers", TTAB Chairman said. "Presently our tea price is very high due to competition among our local buyers who are very active in the tea auctions to meet the home demand", he added.
"Our home consumption is going up every year and if this trend continues, in near future we will not find surplus tea for export" ,Feroz , also a tea trader, said.
"Bangladesh tea might be edged out of global export market unless the output increased," he said.
Every year internal consumption shows a growth of over one million kgs which has now reached to over 30 million kgs annually, he added saying "it is growing very fast".
Bangladesh produced about 55 million kgs tea last year. Feroz said "as our price is very high we are getting poor export enquiry which is really a set-back". "We are lagging behind in exporting tea though our tea has potential for export mar-
kets," he said.
"Export price of one kg of Bangladesh tea now stands at 1.5 dollar while similar type of tea in India costs 85 cents and in China 40 cents per kg ,"he said.
"Our price must come down to a reasonable level to attract the foreign buyers," Feroz said.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the major buyers of our tea while other traditional foreign buyers turned to India, Kenya and African countries to import tea at cheaper price, he said. "As such our tea export market is shrinking day by day, he added."
"But we can export more tea to Pakistan if it allows relaxation of import duty as committed by the Pakistan commerce minister during his visit to Bangladesh several months ago," TTAB chairman said.
"There is immense prospect of Bangladesh tea in Pakistan markets," he added.
Pakistani importers are paying 30 per cent duty now which is a barrier to tea export to that country, he said.
"As a SAARC and Muslim country Pakistan should reduce the tariff to facilitate the access of Bangladesh tea in its markets," Feroz said.
"We suggested our government to negotiate with Pakistan for arranging a special preferential tariff in case of tea export from Bangladesh. There was no followup on the Pakistani commerce minister's visit to Bangladesh in context of tea".
"I hope our commerce ministry will soon take steps to send a delegation to Pakistan to arrange negotiation in this regard before its budget was announced," TTAB chairman added. When asked he said Bangladesh embassies can take steps to campaign for promoting tea exports.
"Due to lack of proper campaign our tea exports started to decline," he said.
In reply to a question he said in the year 2001 tea export from Bangladesh was recorded at 12.93
million kgs, down from 18.10 million kgs a year before (i.e year 2000).
Plans were underway to raise tea output as well as boost export.
Tea is a major cash crop and
Bangladesh has 158 tea gardens. Tea plantation here date back to 1840. At present over 48,000 hectares of land are under tea cultivation. Average yield stands around