Russia: Tea major visited India; Kenya: Kenyan tea production up by 9.0% in May; Tanzania: Tanzania scraps value-added tax for tea; India: Tea production down by 6.5% in May; India: Tata Tea focuses on tea brands and may exit plantations; Indonesia: Indonesia approves bill easing plantation limits; Pakistan: Tea imports calm in June2004; Sri Lanka: Tea production up by 12.4% in May, exports up by 4,3% in April.2003 proved to be a quite turbulent year for the world tea trade. The US attack on Iraq disrupted not only shipments to that tea-loving country but also put a block on trade with several other countries in the tea-drinking Middle East. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that the export volumes of many tea-exporting nations showed double-digit percentage downturns in 2003, although there were a very few countries which managed to increase their- shipments. However, as already noted in the lanuary issueof this journal in which we presented a preliminary review of 2003, things have started to look up. This article will take an in-depth look at the different export performances in 2003 and likely developments in the first few months of the New Year before presenting our final 2003 production estimate in the next issue.
展开▼
