Tea exporters hope Saarc summit will open up Pak market

The Indian tea industry said it had high expectation of improvement in bilateral trade from next week's Saarc summit in Pakistan, which will be attended by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"There were reports that commerce minister was already making efforts to open road-route for export of tea to Pakistan and if this happens it will be very good for the tea industry," said CK Dhanuka, chairman of Indian Tea Association (ITA), the apex body of tea manufacturers in the country.

"I hope that some progress would be made in this direction during the SAARC meeting as this would help consumers of Pakistan and tea manufacturers of India," Dhanuka, who is also managing director of Dhunseri Tea Industries Limited, said.

The recent thaw in relations between India and Pakistan had already raised hopes among the manufacturers of tea as export of the commodity to Pakistan is likely to increase to 7.0 million kgs in 2003-04 from a low of about 3.5 m kgs in 2002-03.

Incidentally, Pakistan was consuming close to 140 m kgs of tea annually, of which it was importing about 100 m kgs from Kenya and rest from Sri Lanka, China and other countries.

If the road route was opened, Pakistan would be able to get tea from India at much cheaper rates than it was getting at present, industry sources said.

"India is looking for a 20-25 m kgs of tea export to Pakistan over 2-3 years and opening up of the road-route would be of immense help," Dhanuka said.