Open Attari route for tea export to Pak: Traders

AMRITSAR: Tea export to Pakistan was a flourishing industry of Amritsar in mid-90s but the trade was weakened with intense competition from tea traders of other cities. Now, the local tea dealers are looking upon government to give them a fresh boost to promote trade with Pakistan and other Central Asian countries by opeing Attari land route.
In 2006, Union minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh had given indication of opening up of Attari land route for tea export to Pakistan but that has not been materialised as yet."If the government had opened Attari route for tea export, the trade would have crossed Rs 100 crore mark," said, president of the Amritsar tea traders association, Rajinder Goel, while talking to TOI on Saturday.
India is the largest producer of tea in the world while Pakistan is the second largest importer of tea from various countries. Due to high freight rate, the Indian tea traders are feeling heat from their counterparts from other countries including China.
Tea exporters of Amritsar claim that they had been exporting green tea worth Rs 20 crore to Pakistan via rail till 1995. However, trade came to a standstill after Pakistan increased the import duty on Indian tea to 65%. A portion of trade then shifted from Amritsar to Mumbai-Karchi route or Mumbai-Dubai route.
A tea exporter, Ashok Kumar, said Amritsar had all the infrastructure including processing houses, expertise and experience of traders for export of tea to Pakistan. "All we need is government's approval for which we have been waiting for years," he said.