Sri Lanka Records Higher Tea Exports Last Year

COLOMBO, Monday (AFP)-- Sri Lanka sold a record 308 million kilos of the commodity to overseas buyers last year, a brokering house said yesterday.

The tea exports in 2005 were 2.83 per cent higher than in 2004, maintaining a small but steady increase seen in the past three years, the Asia Siyaka Commodities said.

Russia and former Soviet Union republics remained the largest market for Sri Lankan tea, better known by the island’s former name of Ceylon, and accounted for nearly a fifth of the total exports.

Sri Lanka earned 814 million dollars from tea exports last year, up from 741 million dollars in 2004, the report said.

Tea is Sri Lanka’s largest single foreign exchange earner after remittances from its nationals employed abroad.

“For the third year in succession Sri Lanka shipped a record volume of tea,” the report said noting that the island had imported 10 million kilos of tea for blending and re-exporting.

Sri Lanka has been competing fiercely with Kenya in tea exports, but the official Kenyan tea board reported exports of 349 million kilos last year to lay claim to the number one place in the world tea market.

~ As reported in Lanka News Jan 31, 2006