India is now exploring marketing collaborations for tea, rice and sugar. The first export alliance is expected to be for tea with Shri Lanka as tea is India’s biggest rival in the world market along with Kenya. Efforts are also on to convince Kenya of the necessity of joining this agreement,. If all the three join together, almost 60 % of global exports would come under this arrangement to check further slide in world tea prices. Over the last couple of years, while volume of tea exports has been rising, the unit value realisation of has been going down due to stiff price competition between these three producers. Consequently, such an alliance would immediately benefit domestic growers and traders. Between April’99 and January ’00 alone there was a 24 % decline in tea exports to $ 596 m from $784 m during the corresponding period of the previous year. India is also keen to enter into a similar understanding with Thailand and Vietnam for rice exports, so that it continues to retain a toe-hold in the highly competitive international market, as reported. |
|