India's tea production down 4% in June

India's estimated tea production fell by around 4 per cent to 142.7 million kg in June from 148.4 million kg produced in the year-ago month, data from the Tea Board India showed on Tuesday.

According to the provisional data, tea exports during the January-June period were up by about 4.5 per cent to 112.05 million kg as against 107.19 million kg exported in the year-ago period. In value terms, exports during the first half of the current calendar year were at Rs 2,177.08 crore as compared to Rs 2,091.75 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Estimated production data suggested that the fall in absolute terms during June was due to a drop in crop production both in north and south India.

In north India, Assam's estimated production for the month, however, increased to 76.73 million kg as compared to 70.48 million kg produced in the corresponding month of 2017 while West Bengal's production for the month stood at 40.86 million kg, down from 47.79 million kg produced in the same month of last year.

Taking Assam, West Bengal and the others together, the estimated crop production during June in north India decreased marginally to 120.18 million kg as against 121.39 million kg produced in June 2017.

In south India, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, the tea production was at 22.52 million kg in June as against 27.01 million kg produced in the same month last year.

However, on the export front, tea shipments to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and others, were at 28.74 million kg in the January-June period of 2018, down from 31.22 million kg in the same period of last year.

Exports to the UK at 4.69 million kg remained stagnant in the period under review, as against 4.68 million kg exported in the year-ago period while exports at 4.12 million kg to Germany during the period were down marginally from 4.28 million kg exported in the corresponding months of 2017.

However, tea exports to Iran went up to 12.11 million kg in the period under review, up by about 11 per cent from 10.91 million kg in the year-ago period.

As much as 6.69 million kg of tea was shipped out to Egypt during the first six months of the current year, up from 4.03 million kg in the year-ago period.

Tea exports to neighbouring Pakistan stood at 7.19 million kg in the period, as against 4.82 million kg exported in the corresponding months of 2017.

India's tea exports to China during the period were up at 4.41 million kg.

--IANS

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