Tea Exports: Indian firms seek access to Pak market

Indian tea dealers are looking upon the Indian government and giving them a boost to promote trade with Pakistan

AMRITSAR: Indian tea export to Pakistan was a flourishing industry of Amritsar in the mid-90s, but trade had weakened due to intense competition from tea traders in other cities. Now, local tea dealers are looking upon the Indian government and giving them a boost to promote trade with Pakistan and other Central Asian countries by opening the Attari land route. In 2006, Indian State Minister for Commerce Jairam Ramesh, had indicated opening up the Attari land route for tea exports to Pakistan, but that hadn’t materialized. “If the government had opened Attari route for tea export, the trade would have crossed Rs100 crore mark,” Amritsar Tea Traders Association President Rajinder Goel told Times of India on Saturday.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2011.