
The Kenya Exports Promotion and Branding Agency embarked on a 5-day educational visit to Mombasa Tea Factory, in Mombasa County. The visits were a part of creating market linkages between Kenyan tea suppliers and Chinese buyers with the aim of identifying and increasing value added tea exports to the Chinese market besides discussing agreed strategies that will increase tea access to the enormous Chinese market.
The visits are geared towards increasing understanding the tea product value chain, Tea 2020 act and its application among other functions of the tea auction and its sources of products, marketing activity and supply to the Chinese market.
While speaking at the value-added tea flag off to Ghana last year, Kenya’s President William Ruto pledged that Kenya will increase value added tea export from the current 5% to 50% in the next 5 years. He also announced that the government will work with industry players to build a shared value addition, processing and packaging facility at Dongo Kundu in Mombasa.
Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency is partnering with the Tea Board of Kenya and Chinese Embassy Economic Diplomacy officials in the educational trip to understand the aspects of doing tea business with China, discussing potential challenges and coming up with ways of assisting in tea exports.
Kenya is the world’s leading producer of black tea. Globally, Kenya is the world’s 3rd largest producer of tea after China and India. Kenya is embarking on large scale production of orthodox tea due to its high demand and great market prices. The potential market for Kenya’s black tea are China, Middle East, Continental Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.