18 February 2023 12:28 am
Sri Lanka witnessed a hole in its tea cuppa in the month of January, as Ceylon Tea exports showed dampened performance.
The provisional data from the Sri Lanka Tea Board showed that for the first month of 2023, tea exports totalled 17.56 MnKgs, which is a 9.4 percent contraction from the corresponding month of the previous year. In January 2022, Sri Lanka exported 19.38 MnKgs of tea.
According to the latest statistics released, the main categories of bulk tea, packeted tea and tea bags have shown a decrease when compared to the corresponding month of 2022.
The FOB value of Rs.2,055.34 records a significant increase of Rs.1,107.10, when compared to Rs.948.24 of January 2022. Meanwhile, the FOB value of US $ 5.66 records an increase of 0.93, in comparison to US $ 4.73 of January 2022.
Emerging as the largest importer of Ceylon Tea for the month of January is Turkey. Ranking in the second place is Iraq, which dropped from the first position from last year. The third largest importer of Ceylon Tea is Russia.
The United Arab Emirates dropped to the fourth place, followed by Azerbaijan at the fifth position. The other notable importers are Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Libya and Jordan.