Marginal rise in tea production, prices

Joseph Vackayil in Chennai

THE new millennium seems to augur well for the tea industry, though there are only marginal positive changes. The production, price and export trends in the last few months indicate positive trends.
Tea production went up to 2,98,197 tonnes in the first half of the current tea year from 2,89,494 tonnes last year. The cumulative production growth during this period was three per cent against 8.9 per cent growth in the same period last year.

Production grew 4.8 per cent in north India and declined 0.15 per cent in the south. In the south, production in Tamil Nadu hills went up to 68,637 tonnes from 66,898, showing an increase of 2.60 per cent.

It was down 4.86 per cent in Kerala from 36,444 tonnes to 34,673 tonnes. In Karnataka also tea production declined 4.56 to 2,593 tonnes in January 2001 from 2,717 tonnes in the similar period last year. Tea production in the country in June 2001 was up 6.3 per cent over that in the corresponding month of last year.

The average tea price in the first half of 2001 was 8.5 per cent higher than the corresponding average in 2000. The average price was Rs 63.19 a kg against Rs 58.25 a kg. This price was down 12.56 per cent from the price in the previous period.

Tea export has gone up during January-May 2001 to 62,812 tonnes showing an increase of 8.85 per cent against 57,705 tonnes in the similar period in 2000, which was almost 18 per cent lower than the volume in the previous period.

However, tea export volume declined by five per cent in May, 2001 after registering a decline of 34.8 per cent in April.

Export earnings in the first five months of the current year also was up 14.43 per cent at Rs 624.74 crore against Rs 545.98 crore in the five-month period last year which was down 23.43 per cent compared to the similar previous period.