Hyderabad: Iraq has emerged as the largest buyer of Indian tea in the calendar year 2023, according to figures released by Tea Board of India for the period January – November of 2023. The Middle East country has bought 33 millon kg of teas from India. However, exports of tea to Iran, the largest buyer of Indian premium tea, has dwindled as Sri Lanka is exporting teas to Iran under a barter trade agreement which helps Sri Lanka to clear off its dues to Iran against purchase of oil.
The overall exports of tea from India in the first 11 months of 2023 has dipped marginally by 1.7 per cent to 207.14 million kg of teas in the period between as compared to 209.60 million kg in the same period of last year. However Indian tea exporters have been able to penetrate more into the China, Iraq, and Egypt markets, which are comparatively newer markets to Indian tea exporters.
Talking to ETV Bharat, Mohit Agarwal, director of Asian Tea, a tea exporting firm said “Indian tea exports would have crossed last year’s mark, had we been able to export more teas to Iran, our biggest orthodox tea buyer. Even Russia too has bought lesser teas this year.” Iran imported 5.16 million kg of tea in 2023 as against 21 million kg in 2022, a decline of 75 per cent.
Russia too has bought lesser tea from India. As against 38 million kg imported in 2022, Russia has bought 28 million kgs of tea from India in 2023.
Agarwal said that the decline in exports to Iran has been mainly due to two reasons. “Firstly, there was some fraudulent activities by one of the Indian tea exporters which had irked the Iranian government. And secondly, which is the most important one is the implementation of the barter agreement between Sri Lanka and Iran.”
Sri Lanka also produces nearly 300 million kgs of orthodox teas and exports most of its production.
Sri Lanka started bartering tea with Iran in July last year instead of $250 million owed for oil. According to the agreement between Sri Lanka and Iran, Sri Lanka’s treasury will release the equivalent of $5 million in rupees every month to the state-run Sri Lanka Tea Board. The Sri Lankan Tea Board will then pay individual exporters at the central bank’s exchange rate.
Exports of tea to China too have increased by 13.17 per cent. Agarwal said that if Indian tea producers can make MRL (maximum residue limit) compliant teas, then exports from the country can easily touch 280 -300 million kg annually.
Notably, this year exports are also down from all other major tea exporting countries such as Kenya, Sri Lanka and China due to geopolitical disturbances and subdued economic conditions. Interestingly, global tea production is higher in 2023 compared to 2022.
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