KAMPALA/LONDON
Efforts by East African countries to grow its tea
industry continue to suffer setbacks due to limited capacity for value
addition, industry players have said.
Uganda Tea Cooperation general manager Rogers
Siima told the Daily Monitor in an interview that although they would
have wanted to export finished products to European markets, players are
still constrained by huge capital requirements and strict European
standards.
“Penetrating the European market with a finished
product that can just go on their supermarket shelves is complicated.
They have strict standards that will make it difficult for us to export
finished products to their countries,” Mr Siima said.
This means the country continues to lose millions
of dollars in revenue. Tea fetched Uganda $73.9 million (Shs184.8
billion), out of the $2.35 billion worth of exports last year, up from
Shs72.1 million out of $2.1 billion total exports in 2011, although the
figure would have been higher if the country was exporting a finished
product.
Although a kilogramme of tea at the Mombasa Tea
Auction in Kenya costs about $1.88 (about Shs4,700) per Kg, when
processed and reshipped back to Uganda, a 50g tea pack costs Shs4,000. A
kilograme of tea is equivalent to 20 50g tea packs. It should, however,
be noted that various types of tea from other countries is blended
together to produce a final product.
European countries including Twinings Tea Factory,
a United Kingdom-based firm import some of the tea requirements they
use to produce their Twinings brands from East Africa including Uganda.
Twinings with an annual turnover of about £670 million, also imports tea
from India, China and Indonesia among others, which it blends together
to produce the final product that is then re-exported to 120 countries
across the world including Uganda.
Twinings Tea Senior Blender in charge of global
product development Mike Wright told journalists that teas from Uganda
and Kenya have a lot of colour and strength and can cut through their
blend very well to produce what customers want. Players in the tea
sector in the region are only able to add value up to the stage of
crashing the dried leaf and then sell it through the Mombasa Tea Auction
to European markets.
