A crowd of 80 Iranian tea manufacturers congregated outside the Ministry of Agriculture to protest the importation of tea. The ministry recently announced a ban tea imports in an attempt to boost domestic production, only the state Tea Organization continues to issue permits for importation, reported IRNA.
Representatives from the Tea-Producing Factories' Syndicate stated that a disproportionate amount of tea imports into the country have discouraged the country's tea industry and has pushed many tea producers to bankruptcy due to increasing public interest in foreign tea. In 2000, Iran imported 12 million kilograms of tea from Sri Lanka. At the end of the first quarter of 2001, shipments totaled 3.8 million kilograms.
"Since domestic tea has not been received well in the market, tea producing factories currently owe a sum of 1.81 trillion rials to northern provinces' tea growers," stated executive Manager of the Tea-Producing Factories' Syndicate Nemat Yavar-Zadeh. He added that some 60,000 tons of tea worth 481 billion Iranian Rials have been produced in northern fields in 2001.
Sources in the local tea industry said that the teas produced by Iran are not of the quality variety, but with blending, it becomes palatable. The ban may cause teas to be smuggled to Iran through Turkey and Dubai, which could cause a price fall at the Colombo Tea Auction because of the graft payments that the smugglers would have to incur to get the tea over the Iranian border. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
