Tea exports set for year record

Sri Lanka’s tea exports rose more than 40 per cent in the first eight months of the year and are on track to earn a record 1.4 billion dollars this year, the Tea Board said Thursday.

Tea shipments climbed 41 percent to 883 million dollars from January to August over the same period a year earlier, helped by strong demand from Russia and the oil exporting nations of the Middle East, the Sri Lanka Tea Board said in a statement.

Sri Lanka, which is the world’s largest exporter of tea after Kenya, has benefited from the recent global commodity boom, analysts say. “We’ve enjoyed good weather and companies have applied fertiliser at the right time despite high world prices (for fertilisers),” Senior Vice President of Asia Siyaka Commodity Brokers, Anil Cooke said. Tea is of crucial importance to the Sri Lankan economy since it is the country’s biggest agricultural export.

Sri Lanka’s tea shipments climbed 9.7 percent to 220.3 million kilogrammes (484.6 million pounds) for the eight months to August from the corresponding period in 2007.

Sri Lankan tea, marketed under the name Ceylon Tea, is the country’s third largest foreign currency revenue earner. Remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad and garment exports are the two top earners.

The country earned a record US $ 1.02 billion from tea in 2007 and is on track to better its performance and hit a record 1.4 billion dollars this calendar year, said Tea Board chairman Lalith Hettiarachchi.

- AFP