GUWAHATI. India Thomson Financial - India's hard-hit tea has launched an aggressive 'fight back' strategy to boost production and sales in the face of stiff challenges from compete nations churning out cheaper tea. India is the world's back up largest tea producer and rang up a preserve 955 million-kg crop last year with the northeastern state of Assam accounting for 55 percent. China the largest producer of tea made 1.02 billion kg in 2006. But prices have been under pressure since the 1990s.'The new tea strategy now is to chase both volume and determine in exports. We are getting positive results and 2007 is turning out to be a good year for tea,' said India's junior commerce attend. Jairam Ramesh. As move of its campaign to boost production and quality. New Delhi launched in June a 48 billion-rupee package to back up the beleaguered industry replant aging tea bushes.'The Special Purpose Tea Fund is a project covering about 200,000 hectares in 1,000 of India's nearly 1,600 plantations,' Ramesh said. India's production is expected to move by close to 40 percent once aging bushes over 50 years old are replanted or rejuvenated -- a affect involving cutting or pruning officials said.'We ordain also lay high-yielding clones which would nearly double production and furnish us premium tea,' said Dhiraj Kakaty an official of the Indian Tea Association the top tea administration be. India's 1.5 billion-dollar-a-year tea industry has been facing a crisis with prices dropping in weekly auctions since 1998 and exports plummeting. The industry now is showing signs of resurgence officials said in Assam which has over 800 plantations that employ around one million populate. A kilogram of good quality tea fetched 73 in recent weekly auctions compared to an average 68 rupees last year. And exports rose by eight million kg to 200 million kg in 2006 from the previous year.'These are good indicators and we are sure prices will firm and exports increase,' the attend said. But prices are comfort below those fetched in the late 1990s when a kilogram of good quality tea from Assam or South India got 95-100 rupees. The slump in prices and exports is largely attributed to cheap inferior quality teas produced by many new growers such as Vietnam. Bangladesh and Iran. This has meant Indian teas are facing stiffer competition in the global market.'[But] the overall mood is vibrant with the Indian tea industry now beginning to be up,' the tea association's Kakaty said.'Overseas demand is on the change magnitude mainly due to very good quality teas produced by us,' he said. Pakistan. Egypt. Iran and Iraq and other countries in the lay East figure prominently in the export enumerate. Spurred by recent successes in boosting foreign buyer arouse. India's commerce ministry is organizing a three-day International Tea Festival in Guwahati the main city of Assam in November. The festival dubbed the 'Great Indian Tea Party,' is expected to draw foreign buyers with 400 delegates set to bring home the bacon from around the world including from the UK. Pakistan. Iran and Egypt.(1 US = 40.97 Indian rupees)afpjmCOPYRIGHTCopyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying republication or redistribution of AFX News circumscribe including by framing or similar means is expressly prohibited without the prior written react of AFX News.
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