To increase farmer incomes, the Kenyan government intends to expand the nation’s tea export market.
According to Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi, the Kenyan Tea Board will shortly release an action plan that will focus on both current and potential export markets.
A five-year plan for the tea industry’s global market expansion, encompassing 13 priority markets, will be unveiled by the Tea Board, according to Linturi.
North America (the United States and Canada), Europe (Germany and Poland), Asia (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Japan and China) and Africa (South Africa and Ghana) are some of these markets.
Linturi underlined the significance of marketing Kenyan tea in order to raise its profile internationally.
According to him, a stamp of origin will be added to Kenyan tea labels in order to improve brand identification.
This will significantly increase the income of tea producers. Additionally, the government has gazetted incentives for tea value addition in the designated Special Economic Zones, where tea sector players are urged to establish shared user facilities through public-private partnerships. Linturi stated
Going forward, the government anticipates that within three to five years, the nation will be exporting at least 50% of its processed and branded tea.
According to Kenya’s tea sector performance highlights for February 2024, the country shipped more tea to 53 export locations than it did to 48 during the same time previous year.
According to a study by the Tea Board of Kenya, 16.44 million kg or 30.6% of Kenyan tea’s total export volume, were imported by Pakistan, which continued to be the country of choice for exporters.
Chad secured the 11th rank, indicating that it has become a significant market for Kenyan tea and that its exports from Kenya have been steadily rising.
Chad is a landlocked nation that used to get its commodities, including tea, from Sudan before the turmoil there.
But since the fighting has closed off trade channels from Sudan, Chad is increasingly utilizing other transshipment routes, like those through Nigeria and Cameroon.
Sudan received 22% fewer Kenyan tea imports last year than most other traditional and emerging markets, with the exception of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and the Netherlands, whose demand is still being impacted by the global economic downturn brought on by the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Shipments were also made to developing and cyclical markets in Australia, the Central African Republic, Peru, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Angola, Israel, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Guinea, Niger, Iraq, Mexico, Italy and Myanmar. As an emerging market for Kenyan tea, South Sudan is expanding quickly, much like Chad,” the tea regulator stated.
