New ideas to boost world tea market
(FAO) Just like for other tropical products, the world tea market has
seen a tendency for increasing supplies to run ahead of demand growth,
depressing prices and returns to producers in developing countries.
As different attempts to control supplies over the years proved
ineffective, tea market experts have switched their attention to demand
and especially how to boost demand in producing countries where per
capita tea consumption is low, according to an FAO Report prepared for
the Intergovernmental Group on Tea meeting in Hangzhou, China.
World tea production continued to grow in 2006. The annual growth
rate was more than 3 per cent to reach an estimated 3.6 million tonnes.
The expansion was mainly due to record crops in China, Viet Nam and
India.
The very latest figures put world black tea production at 2.5 million
tonnes as compared to 968 000 tonnes for green tea.
FAO projections to 2017 indicate that world green tea production is
expected to grow at a considerably faster rate than black tea, 4.5 per
cent annually compared to 1.9 per cent for black tea. The projections
reflect the growth in China where the programme for production expansion
through rehabilitation, replanting and some conversion is expected to
continue to 2017.
The level of world tea consumption in 2006 was roughly equal to
production. But its growth rate was only one percent, a slowdown from
the annual average of 2.7 per cent growth over the previous decade.
Per capita consumption in the major tea producing countries lags
behind, in spite of their strong economic growth. Russians consume 1.26
kg per year and the British 2.2 kg per year but in India tea consumption
is only 0.65 kg per head per year and in China it is only 0.53 kg per
year.
The report sees an immediate potential for expanding consumption in
producing countries with strong economic growth and low per capita
consumption of tea and looks at how this might be achieved through
quality improvement.
"Expanding consumption in producing countries could ease supply
pressure at the world level and improve tea prices in the long run,"
according to the FAO report. Although tea quality is a complex matter,
there is growing international interest in the enforcement of minimum
quality standards for tea traded internationally.
Better quality should increase demand while preventing low quality
tea from being traded should curtail the oversupply situation in the
world tea market, according to the report. The difficulty is to agree on
internationally acceptable quality standards.
The judgement of tea quality and assessment of its characteristics
and value is generally undertaken by tea tasters who usually base their
judgment on a particular requirement. However, such requirements may
reflect differing tastes among countries and customers.
Difficulties in defining reference qualities are also compounded by
the wide range of producing areas with different cultural, plucking and
manufacturing techniques as well as differing impacts of climatic
conditions.
At its last meeting in 2006, the Intergovernmental Group on Tea
recommended the adoption of ISO 3720 (ISO stands for the International
Standards Organization) as the minimum quality standard for black tea
entering international trade.
The report examined in Hangzhou this week outlines developments
regarding the acceptance of ISO standard 3720 and its application and
invites the Group to define follow-up action to gradually extend the
application of this standard in international trade.
Countries accounting for about 80 % of exports of black tea have
adopted national standards that were either identical to ISO 3720 or
slightly different.
The report notes that ISO 3720 applies to black tea only, but work on
standards for green tea is also underway.
The Hangzhou meeting will also examine the establishment of a working
group to identify potential geographical indications (GIs) for tea. The
main features of GIs will be examined and assessed in the context of the
existing international regulatory framework.
It is hoped that GIs will help expand tea consumption worldwide.
|