The country's tea exports rebounded last fiscal year due to an increase in domestic tea production and the produce's competitive price in the global market, industry people said yesterday.

Export earnings from tea stood at $14.89 million in fiscal year 2007-08, up 114.55 percent from $6.94 million in 2006-07, according to Export Promotion Bureau statistics.

"A shortfall in tea production in a few tea producing countries has helped us attain the growth in export," said Md Idris, executive director of HRC Syndicate, the biggest exporter of local tea. "High price of tea in the Indian market also offered us an opportunity to get a competitive edge in pricing," said Idris.

Export earnings from tea recorded a sharp fall in fiscal year 2006-07, due mainly to a shortfall in tea production, which also drove tea prices up, industry insiders said. But a 6.15 percent increase in tea production in fiscal year 2007-08 helped exporters gain higher export earnings. Total production of tea stood at 58.83 million kg in the fiscal year 2007-08,up from 55.42 million kg a year ago.

Exporters said Pakistan is

the biggest market for Bangladesh's tea. Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the other major markets for local tea.

On the face of growing domestic consumption of tea, its production must rise so the producers can increase their export earnings, said industry people.

"The main problem in exporting tea is the production shortfall. We have to increase production to export more," said Idris of HRC, which bagged over 35 percent of total export earnings from tea last fiscal year, followed by MM Isphahani and Elite International Ltd.

The HRC official said other countries such as Vietnam have advanced much in increasing tea production in the last couple of years.

"Production in Bangladesh is not increasing much to reach the expectation," he said, adding that tea production will increase in the coming days as many

new gardens are being added to the old ones due to relatively better prices of tea.

Idris, however, said export earnings in the current fiscal year is not that encouraging

due to higher tea prices in the domestic market.

"As a result buyers, mainly from Pakistan, are discouraged."

sohel@thedailystar.net