5 September 2005 - The Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) is making plans to target untapped markets in Eastern Europe in order to increase local exports by 10% on yearly basis. According to Director General H.D. Hemaratne, the SLTB has already launched a major promotional and trade fair campaign in several EU states including Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland.
Speaking further Hemaratne stated, “The SLTB branch in Poland is in charge of the promotional activities, which have drawn a huge response from these countries. These campaigns will be targeted at virgin markets through generic promotions and unilateral promotions which will use of the Lion logo.” He added that they mainly encourage promoting of value-added tea for these markets, which has an excellent demand.
“If these promotional campaigns constantly promote these new markets we could increase tea exports by 10% on an yearly basis. Ukraine has reduced the import duty on Sri Lankan tea recently.” This is expected to pave the way for the increase of tea in that country and even to the lucrative Russian market.
Sri Lanka, the largest orthodox tea exporter in the world, has a big demand for most of other markets in the world. The island exports more than 292 million kgs of tea. Presently, Sri Lanka exports more than 30% of value added tea. This is expected to reach 50% mark very soon.
In addition to these promotions, SLTB will participate in major forums including tea testing forum in Germany which has organised by major tea buyers in Europe and International Standard Organization's Tea sector sub committee meeting.
The SLTB was established in January 1976, under the purview of Ministry of Plantation Industries of Sri Lanka and is the apex Government body responsible for promotion and development of the tea industry in Sri Lanka. It performs the duties as a non-commercial service organisation.