Financial Times

Govt to lobby Russia to save tea market
A government delegation led by Minister of Plantation Industries, Lakshman Kiriella, will visit Russia and the Ukraine later this month to lobby against regulations that could hurt exports of Ceylon tea.

Kiriella will be going as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's special envoy and will be accompanied by Small Holder Development Minister Susantha Punchinilame and a team of officials.

The delegation will seek to persuade authorities in both countries not to go ahead with moves to selectively increase the minimum value of tea in customs declarations in a complicated mechanism that would effectively double import duty on value-added Ceylon teas.

Although Russia and the rest of the CIS have been Sri Lanka's leading tea importers since 1995, the value added quantum has been steadily dropping since 1999, the Tea Association of Sri Lanka has said.

The industry fears being priced out of its biggest market owing to the effectively higher customs duty on value-added imports that the new minimum price rules will bring.

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