Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka aims to launch an “aggressive” marketing campaign in a bid to boost exports to one-time leading importer Russia, which as recently as 2006 bought 43% of Sri Lanka’s exports but now buys only 28%, according to minister of plantation industries Mahinda Samarasinghe, quoted in the local media.

“We are not happy at all with this loss of market share with one our biggest tea buyers: this is not an acceptable situation,” Samarasinghe said. “On our last visit there we met the minister of agriculture in Russia and discussed ways of increasing our market share for Ceylon tea there, as it is well-known for its quality which has never been compromised. We will in the near future launch an aggressive marketing campaign to recover our lost tea market in Russia,” Samarasinghe told a group of Russian tea buyers in Colombo recently.
Poor weather has brought down crop estimated for the January harvest by about 30%, but the shortfall may be recovered from the February crop, according to Jayantha Karunaratne, managing director of Impra Tea, who last year exported about 3 million kg of Ceylon tea to Russia.
 Indonesia, Kenya, India, Vietnam and China have all gained market share in Russia  at Sri Lanka’s expense, a function of the higher cost of Ceylon tea, according to Karunaratne.
“We bear a high cost in packing our tea,” he said. “These costs must be brought down, other brands like Liptons are now packing their tea in several countries. Also we are not allowed to import tea into the country as the protests from the producers are strong. To counter this situation we must find a strategy or suffer the consequences.”