Production of Indonesian tea is ready to face the Free Trade Agreement of China-ASEAN (CAFTA) because it has advantages over production in China, said commodity tea analysts who also a board member of the Tea Council of Indonesia, Andrew T Supit.
"Indonesia tea products is still higher than Chinese. The advantages of this should be the capital of Indonesia in the competition in the ASEAN and Chinese markets."
According to him, the level of tea production in Indonesia in 2009 reached 120,000 tons per year or about 5.8 percent to meet the needs of the world with an area of 148,000 hectares of plantations. From the data ATI (Tea Association of Indonesia), tea donated 110 million dollars in foreign currency per year.
"The level of world consumption of tea is increased, giving more value that is owned by the producers as Indonesia."
He said that world consumption of tea in 2007 was 3.4 million tons of black tea, green tea & oolong tea (semi fermented tea). 69 percent of that amount was black tea. Indonesia is one of the largest exporter of black tea.
"This marks outside the commercial area that has been consolidated in the region of China and the ASEAN, Indonesia is a player to be taken into account", added. Indonesia dealt with the world six major producers of tea after China, Viet Nam, Lanka, Sri India and Kenya.
He hoped there will be a revitalization effort to increase tea production that has constrained the limited land, where 50 percent of farm land is the land of farmer. The provision of fertilizer is a must to maintain the quality of tea
According to him, if all components can work harder, it is possible in a relatively short time, Indonesia will occupy position 3 of the world tea producers to surpass Vietnam. Mekong River country in 2006 beat Indonesia in terms of productivity of tea.
In fact, tea processing technology, Indonesia is still far superior. There's even a tea-making factory, the technology is exported to other countries, although the government did not see this as a great opportunity towards industrialization of tea.
Recently, tea is not only as a beverage, also been used for herbal and beauty. He explained that the current per capita tea consumption levels of Indonesian society about 350 grams/year. That is, less than 1 g/day per person
The number itself is still far below of the Irish and British consumption per capita above 3,500 grams/year. The comparison of the above, says Andrew Supit, show if the tea production internal should be 120,000 tons and the expected level of consumption per capita is 500 g / year (assuming a population of Indonesia, 200 million people), then there is a surplus stock of 20,000 tons.
"The time is destined for export." If the production of tea of Indonesia largely for domestic consumption and the rest less than 50%, then there will be no shortage in stocks of tea in the world. "The impact of what happens is that the shortage of global supply made prices soar because of the shortage of supply in which this condition is, precisely, the benefits that can be taken by tea farmers and Indonesia tea industry", he said.
Source: Antara News 2010
Image: private collection
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