Siliguri : The first-ever official trade delegation from north Bengal is set to leave for a seven-day trip to Russia tomorrow with the hope of rekindling some of the lost business it had with the country, especially in tea.
Under the aegis of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s North Bengal zonal office, a 12-member team comprising representatives from the tea, tourism and education sectors here will be meeting government, trade and business personalities from Moscow and Ufa, the headquarters of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
“We will be holding face-to-face discussions with representatives of organizations that have shown keen interest in doing business and trade with this region of India,” said Kamal Mittal, chairman of CII’s North Bengal Zonal Council and leader of the delegation speaking from Bangkok. He will be joining the rest of the team in Delhi tomorrow.
With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh currently on a visit to Moscow, the CII tour too is expecting sufficient attention.
The delegation will meet the director and members of the Bashkortostan Chambers of Commerce, the republic’s minister of external links, trade and entrepreneurship, and the business community as well as visit tea factories and distilleries.
“We shall be setting up a joint business center in Bashkortostan in conjunction with the mayor of Ufa,” Mittal said. The latter part of the tour will be with business representatives in Moscow.
“Our main agenda there will be tea. The Russians have expressed interest in joint ventures in this sector, including takeover of a few faltering gardens (in north Bengal), where 50 per cent of the investment will be done by them,” said Prabir Seal, spokesperson of the delegation and a CII zonal council member.
“They have also shown interest in importing tea from north Bengal. Several aspects of the likely deals have already been taken up through email, like the type of tea (CTC and Darjeeling), packaging, transportation and the joint collaborations. What we are taking with us are the samples and the prices, which we will tell them across the table,” Seal, also a tea trader, said.
The other members of the team comprise Sravan Choudhury, Rajkumar Dalmia, Ravi Agarwal, K.K. Tiwari, Vikas Bansal, Pawan Poddar (all tea), Prasenjit Saha (tea and liquor), Sujit Raha, K.K. Kedia (real estate and education) and Laxmi Limbu Kaushal, head of CII North Bengal.
“The export of tea to Russia dropped in the mid 1990s, before which 50 per cent of brew that went to that country was from India. In 2006, of the 181 million kg of tea exported, only 20 per cent went to Russia. The Indian government has set a $10 billion trade turnover target with Russia to be achieved by 2010,” Seal said.
Tea tourism, flori-culture, scope for bottling Russia’s favorite drink, Vodka, and several other areas will also be explored, Kaushal said.
Source: The Telegraph
The Russians are seeking to undo some of the damage they had done earlier to India’s tea industry.
If some years ago they gave the industry a setback of sorts by dumping Indian tea for Chinese and Ceylonese varieties (one of the major reasons for the crisis in the tea industry here), a group of Russian businessmen are now interested in not only buying brew from the region but also investing jointly in the sector in north Bengal and Russia.
In an email to P.K. Saha, vice-chancellor of North Bengal University (NBU), the Russian Finance and Economic Institute (RFEI), Moscow, said the businessmen there were keen about India-Russia tie-ups in tea. They have also invited a delegation of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and NBU to explore the possibilities.
The development follows a recent visit by a team from the Russian government-affiliated RFEI to Siliguri — an initiative of NBU. It had then interacted with local industrialists and the CII’s north Bengal zonal council.
In the mail to Saha, which has been forwarded to CII’s north Bengal zonal council chairman Kamal Mittal, Bublik N.D., the coordinator of the Russian team, said the institute made a pilot analysis of the tea market back home and forecast a bright future for a tie-up.
“He has said their studies have found out that there are possibilities of increasing tea import from India three times,” Mittal said.
Russia has four tea factories where brew from the world over are blended and packaged. According to Bublik, RFEI is in the process of initiating a dialogue with the factory at Ufa on how the share of Indian tea can be increased in their dealings.
Bublik has urged NBU to prepare a report on India’s export scene. “The Russians are interested in direct trading with India,” said Saha.
At the same time, RFEI is concerned about the quality (it was because of this that Indians lost ground in Russia). It has asked NBU to study the quality aspect of export tea, especially that of the raw material used.
The Russians are also keen on diversification. “They are interested in innovations like iced tea, flavoured tea, canned tea and tea bags,” Saha said.
The vice-chancellor said he has forwarded the communiqué to the industry.
Welcoming the move, Mittal said: “It is just the beginning but definitely in the right direction. If our tea is able to regain the Russian market, the industry can hope for a turnaround.”
The RFEI said it has had discussions with Russian investors and has invited a delegation from India to Moscow for a direct interaction in April-May.
“I have been told that RFEI has also called up many tea planters directly,” Mittal said. “We have asked RFEI to send a formal invitation, following the protocol of international communications, so that we can process the formalities.”
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