India can emerge as brand for tea and spices in intl market: Scindia

Kolkata, Nov 4 : India can emerge as a brand for tea and spices in the international market, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia today said.

''The two areas in which India can emerge as brand are tea and spices. We have to reposition ourselves,'' he said speaking at a seminar organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Scindia said out of the 980 million kg of tea produced in the country, 200 million kg, mainly the CTC variety, are exported.

''The major market abroad is for orthodox (tea). We require product diversification, moving away from CTC to orthodox. There is need to produce quality tea for export markets, which is why rejuvenation and replantation work is important in the gardens,'' he said adding the tea sector also needed to add values like tea bags to be competitive in the global market.

'' We need to integrate the back-end and front-end of the tea industry. The front-end comprises packagers and marketers and the back-end is the producers,'' he said.

--UNI

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