New Delhi : Taiwan and Iran have rejected three containers of Indian tea due to phytosanitary issues and the presence of pesticides beyond the permissible limits, said two people aware of the development.
The decline in tea exports from Sri Lanka due to the financial crisis opened up new markets for Indian tea; However, the recent rejection of Indian tea may dent New Delhi’s efforts to capture new markets.
An official, one of the two mentioned above, said, however, that export rejections from India were extremely low.
“Only two containers have come back from Taiwan and one from Iran. The maximum residue level (MRL) in Taiwan is very low and exporters are aware of the risk,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
MRL is the maximum concentration of pesticide residues in or on food and food ingredients after the use of pesticides.
The exporters said that about 95% of the rejected Indian tea consignments have quinalphos in excess of the permissible limit.
“The container that was rejected in Iran was due to a phytosanitary issue. Some dirty substance was found in that tea. It was not the fault of the manufacturer, but the exporter was to be blamed,” the official added.
Queries sent to a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry remained unanswered till press time.
A former official of the Tea Board of India said the MRL for the chemical quinalphos in India is 0.01 mg per kg, making it one of the strictest in the world.
The standard is much higher at 0.7 for EU and 0.1 for Japan, the person said, adding that if Indian producers manage to bring the number down to 0.1, none of the export shipments will be rejected.
Exporters say India is not the only country which finds it difficult to export tea to Taiwan due to its strict MRL requirement. Vietnam and Chinese shipments are also rejected because they find it difficult to comply with Taiwanese norms.
An exporter aware of the development said that the rejected container is one of India’s largest tea exporters based in Kolkata, without naming the company. “Out of 600 containers sent by his company, only two got rejected,” the exporter said.
As far as Iran is concerned, Indian tea is well established in Iran, the exporters said. Tea Board officials said Sri Lanka is the only competitor in the Iranian market, but with its financial challenges, the entire Iranian market is poised to grab hold.
According to Commerce Department data, the value of tea exports fell from $785 million in 2017-18 to $700 million in FY21. Experts pointed out that there have been limited improvements in the Indian tea industry, and most of the production and exports are still done in the traditional way.
“There are countries that use non-tariff barriers, but Taiwan and Iran do not reject Indian tea for that reason. China rejected India CTC tea in large quantities, citing chromium content. Indian tea contains traces of chromium due to the stainless steel machinery that we use. And China does this to target India,” said an exporter who did not wish to be named.
Meanwhile, the official cited above said that tea growers and sellers have been asked to strictly adhere to the quality norms laid down by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). He said that the Board has directed the officials that any consignment of tea which has failed on the FSSAI testing standards should not be dropped from the godown.