Pakistan's Tea Addiction Can Stimulate Economy

Pakistanis' great hospitality to strangers and strong addiction to tea has given birth to many proverbs. The best known of these is the one about the "three cups of tea" which goes like this: On the first cup, you're a stranger, and on the second, a guest. By the third cup, you're family.

Pakistan is the world’s third-largest importer of tea with nearly 175 million kg of annual consumption, costing an estimated $500 million, and increasing at about 4% a year. It imports tea from 21 countries, with the lion's share of black tea imports coming from Kenya, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The country's green tea requirements are met by imports from five countries led by Indonesia and Vietnam. Only a small fraction of Pakistan's tea imports come from neighboring India.

Tea prices, which hit record highs in 2009 due to droughts in India, Sri Lanka and Kenya, should stabilize in 2010 as weather has returned to normal in the main producing regions in Asia and Africa, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. It is estimated that global tea production has been cut by as much as 20% this year.

The UN food agency said its Tea Composite price, the indicative world price for black tea, hit a high of $3.18 a kg in September, driven by the droughts and higher demand, up from an average price of $2.38 per kg in 2008. At 34 percent annual increase, tea prices have significantly outpaced overall food price inflation, which has also been running in double digits in recent years in Pakistan.

China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Argentina and Bangladesh are the top 10 tea producing countries in the world.

Pakistan is not a tea producing country but it is the third largest importer of tea in the world, behind Russia and the UK. Because of its high tea consumption, and the fact that it has no production of its own, it is a market which is keenly pursued by main tea exporting nations. Tea affects the taste buds; therefore, it is difficult to replace a particular variety with a substitute. This explains why certain types are favored by certain countries : for example, the Russians and former Soviet republics favor Indian and Sri Lankan teas. UK and Pakistan prefer Kenyan teas.

To cut spending on tea imports, trials have been conducted for growing tea in Pakistan, particularly Mansehra, Battagram, Swat and Azad Kashmir. These trials have shown good results in Northern Pakistan, but the necessary commercial investment needed to develop a viable industry has not yet materialized.

With the rising tea consumption and growing import bill, it is important for Pakistan to give incentives for investments for tea cultivation. Such a policy can help create jobs in the northern regions where they are most needed, while at the same time providing economic opportunity to young people to take a step toward creating the much-needed peace and political stability for the entire nation.

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Pakistan Rupee in Sharp Decline

Pakistani Rupee has hit a new low at Rs. 66.00 for a US dollar. The rupee decline seems to have accelerated against the weak US currency recently amid reports of rising imports, stagnant exports and falling foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan.

“The fast erosion in the central bank reserves is creating pressures on the rupee,” the treasury dealer Rehanuddin at Invest Cap told the Gulf Times.

The central bank has so far lost around $4bn in the last five months to $12.65bn this week over $16.48bn on October 31. Analysts say the reserves will dwindle to $10bn by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. “Political uncertainty, lack of foreign investment and import pressures have badly hit reserves,” Aqeel Ahmed, senior analyst at First Cap Securities, said.

"The import pressure is rising rapidly on high oil prices, our exports are not increasing due to food shortage while foreign investment is also slow and all these factors are contributing to the weaknesses of the rupee," said Syed Nabeel Iqbal, the chief of trading and research at Karachi-based Khanani & Kalia, one of the largest foreign exchange firms in the country.

According to market sources, three major Pakistani companies - Lucky Cement, the National Bank of Pakistan and Habib Bank - are planning to float Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) amounting to close around 1 billion dollars.

State-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd is planning to float its bonds to be exchangeable with its lucrative stocks. It is hoped that the major privatization will help boost Pakistan's dwindling foreign currency reserves.

China announced in April it will provide Pakistan with 500 million dollars in balance-of-payment support.

'All this is positive news which may help the rupee in maintaining stability in its declining path, but when all these positive factors will figure in is a big question,' said said Khurram Shahzad, senior analyst at Invest Cap Securities.

Failure by Pakistan to arrest any further significant decline in rupee will accelerate inflation and add to the misery of the people already suffering high prices for basic commodities.

The bottom line, however, will be the competence of the new economic team in charge of Pakistan's finance and treasury in dealing with the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunities. Given the terrible track record of the current Finance Minister Mr. Ishaq Dar in the Sharif government of the late 1990s, it is hard to be sanguine about the prospects of Pakistan's economy.

Any hope of recovery will depend on how soon the Pakistani ruling politicians can rise above the nepotist politics and choose competent technocrats to navigate the Pakistani economy through troubled waters.

Sources: Gulf Times
Business News