Tea industry brews highest ever exports

• Turkey displaces Russia as the single largest market for Sri Lanka

In a major boost, the country’s tea industry has achieved an all-time high export performance both in volume and value. Ceylon Tea Brokers said yesterday that cumulative Sri Lanka tea exports for the period January/December 2014 recorded 327.87m kgs thus recording an all time high surpassing the previous highest of 327.41m kgs in 2006. January/December 2013 recorded a quantity of 319.66 m kgs. The total quantity of tea exports for December 2014 was 30.28m kgs vis-à-vis 29.00m kgs in the same period in 2013 (+1.28m kgs) “Cumulative tea export earnings for 2014 was Rs. 212.91b thus recording an all time high surpassing the previous high of Rs. 199.44b recorded in 2013. In dollar terms the value of exports in 2014 was $ 1.63 b vis-à-vis $ 1.54b in 2013,” Ceylon Tea Brokers added. Turkey replaced Russia as Sri Lanka’s top export country with an export volume of 44.74m kgs in 2014. Russia along with the other CIS countries continues to be our biggest export market.