There were some businessmen engaged in importing inferior quality tea and re-exporting it other destinations in packages carrying bogus Ceylon Tea tags. This has caused severe harm to the local tea industry, Secretary to the Ministry of Plantation Industries Indrani Sugathadasa told The Island on Tuesday (30).

One of the main problems in the tea industry was that low quality teas, damaged the goodwill of our teas. Only up to 3 percent of the national production could be imported but some exporters had made use of the concession to make huge profits by re-exporting low quality teas imported from other countries, she said.

There have been a number of complaints about such re-exports and these would be investigated.

She said the ministry was starting a tea factory modernization programme to help the industry to improve the quality of tea as quality teas still had a demand in the export markets.

Tea small holders were having difficulties but even when a fertilizer subsidy had been given by the government most small holders were not using it and that too added to the problems of the tea industry, she said.