Chairman, Pakistan Tea Association (PTA), Muhammad Altaf, Tapal Tea MD Aftab Tapal, Finance Director Lever Brothers Pakistan Peter Harvi, Commercial Manager Humayun Shaikh, Corporate Manager Afzal Mazari, and PTA Regional Chairman Hamid Saeed Khawaja attended the meeting.
The Additional Commerce Secretary said that any decision in this regard would be taken in the interests of Pakistan and its importers. He said that the government is working on the issue and Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar would be leaving for Kenya in the first week of March to discuss the matter with Kenyan officials.
The tea importers said at the meeting that any increase on Kenyan tea was not a solution of the issue and it would create new problems for local importers. They said that an increase in import duty on tea from Kenya would encourage smuggling and open up new illegal channels for its import from other sources.
The importers said that situation was not ripe for such a move at this stage. Any decision taken in haste would push up prices because the present tea stocks are not enough to meet the requirements of the country.
They said Pakistan is not in a position to look for any alternative country overnight as 62 percent of the total imports of tea is from Kenya and any other country cannot fulfil its requirements presently.
This is off-season in many countries including Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Vietnam. Next tea season would start from April and tea for import would be available in the first week of May as a first flush, which is not good quality tea, they added.
They said that there is not enough tea stock in the country due to long winter season this year and import of required quantity of tea from any other country at the same rates was not possible.
The tea importers suggested that the government should sign free trade agreements with other countries to overcome the increasing prices of tea. FTA could also be signed with Kenya and it should be given preference for signing FTA because Kenya is the biggest tea producing country, they added.
The tea importers also discussed about illegal import of tea and said that a huge quantity was being imported by illegal channels even after decrease in import duty. The legal importers have to pay 34 percent of their total expenditures as duty, sales tax and income tax while tea smugglers' expenditures are only 12 percent, they added.
They suggested that the government should think about it and import duty should be revised. Sales tax should also be revised down by 10 percent from 15 percent.
Pakistan tea imports could be increased by 150 million kg through legal channel as 118 million kg tea was imported in 2004, they said.