Tea exports to China tops 10 mn kgs

„Global tea promotional campaign to kick-off in China this May

Sri Lanka’s tea exports to China surpassed the 10 million kgs mark in 2018 for the first time in history, reaching an all-time high of 10.02 million kgs.

However, the growth of tea exports to China slowed down to 1.2 percent last year from a record 30 percent achieved in 2017.

Ceylon Tea exports to China have been steadily growing since 2012, when tea export volumes to China were a mere 3 million kgs.

The Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) expects that tea exports to China will pick up in the coming years, following the launch of the 3-year global tea promotional campaign in China this May.

Speaking to Mirror Business, SLTB Director (Promotions) Hasitha De Alwis said that the promotional campaign will be launched first in China between May 15 and 20 during the SIAL China 2019 exhibition and China International Tea Expo organised by the Ministry of Agriculture of China.

He noted that SLTB has allocated Rs.500 million for the main promotional campaign in China and another Rs.27 million for a PR campaign, which will run simultaneously.

He explained that the promotion campaign in China will focus more on the social media.

The three key elements of the campaign will be— key opinion leaders (KOLS), supermarket and hyper market activations and search engine optimisation.

De Alwis noted that the main objectives of global promotion campaign are to increase the Ceylon Tea volumes, increase the valued added Ceylon tea linked to the Lion logo and to link Ceylon Tea with Sri Lanka.

“In certain countries they know Ceylon Tea, but they don’t know Ceylon Tea is coming from an Island called Sri Lanka,” he stressed.