Sicily Kariuki, the MD of Tea Board of Kenya said at a recent Kenya-UAE Trade Symposium held in Nairobi that her country had dislodged Sri Lanka as the leading tea exporter last year and hoped it would continue maintaining the same position in the coming years. She also informed Kenya weathered in the global tea market despite severe drought and oversupply price pressure owing to country’s efforts in research and development which produced 50 varieties of tea suitable to be grown in the seven growing regions.

On the contrary, last season’s tea production in Sri Lanka was badly affected by parched weather that damaged crop and wage dispute. However, Sri Lankan Tea Board is reported to be positive about this year’s yield and exports as the climate is forecasted to be conducive for tea plantations across the country.

Though India produces more tea than Kenya, the former is most unlikely to beat the latter in exports as its domestic needs are quite higher than what is available for external supplies, just about 25 percent of the total. The Kenyan tea has been exported to the UK, Pakistan, Egypt and Sudan apart from other 43 countries.

Tea which has attained the new image in Kenya as the highest revenue earner is believed to be attracting many into this field. About 150,000 hectares of land are currently under the crop yielding, and produces an average of 11,000 kg of green leaf per hectare. At the meet, Kariuki apprised that out of the 40 percent of all global tea bags used in making the popular beverage, at least 10 percent of its content came from Kenya.

Toboc Trade News

Sri Lanka was devastated by terrorism sponsored by the LTTE that demanded separate land carved out of the country for the ethnic Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese community forms the majority of the population and a large number of them follow Buddhism. Currently, its defence forces are in the final stages of completely wiping out the last bastion of the terror outfit to free the country from the prolonged violence of two decades.

Ravinatha Aryasinha, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union (EU) said the re-branding would encourage foreign tourists to look at Sri Lanka with new eyes and enable the country to position itself as a destination second to none. He added the core idea was to change the perception of the travellers from far-away lands that the country has returned to normalcy where everyone could experience its rich culture and beautiful locales peacefully. He also drew attention to the fact that despite the country had to bear the brunt of terrorism Sri Lanka grew by about 6 percent in recent years, and continued to invite steady flow of foreign investments and tourists.

According to sources, Sri Lanka is planning to launch several promotional programs through print and electronic media to tide over its ‘unsafe’ image abroad. At the re-branding function the state-owned Sri Lankan Airlines launched “Buy One, Get One Free” sales theme targeting the European travellers. The tour operators’ primary focus would be to promote Sri Lanka as a safe tourist destination, and thereby remove it from the list of travel advisories by several countries.

Toboc Trade News