Download the PDF version of the report Russian Tea Market

Summary of contents:

- Introduction
- Global Tea Market Summary
- Issues and Trends Affecting the Global Market
- Analysis of the Russian Tea Market
- Analysis of the Indian Tea Market
- Comparison of Russian and Indian Tea Markets
- Opportunities for Indian Tea Producers

Introduction

Tea is the oldest and the most widely consumed beverage in the world after water. It is estimated that there are over 2,000 different types of tea.[1] Though several varieties of tea such as green tea and herbal tea are now becoming popular, by far the most important tea to international trade is black tea. In the global tea market, China, India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka are the major producers and also play a major role as exporters of tea, while Russia, U.K., U.S., Pakistan, and Japan form the major markets for these exports. Consumer awareness of the health benefits of tea and premiumisation [2] have been the growth drivers of the tea market recently.

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Posted by Alexander Aginsky at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week was marked by two intimately connected major events: Obama announced the scrapping of the plan to deploy Missile Defense Shield elements in Eastern Europe, and NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen made an arguably even more impressive speech listing three global security initiatives aimed at rapprochement with Russia. It would hardly be an overstatement to call the two events historic, for never before have a US president and a NATO secretary general made such promising and friendly moves toward Russia, and not just by word but actually by deed. NATO’s readiness for a joint US-Russian missile defense system and a serious consideration of Medvedev’s idea for a new Euro-Atlantic security architecture amounts to acknowledging Russia’s role as a major player on the European continent. This can also be regarded as an invitation to Russia to complete a military and eventually also a political and economic integration with the West.

The content of Obama’s speech came as no surprise due to leaks to the press long before the official announcement. As was to be expected, both in America and in other countries, particularly in Poland and the Czech Republic, a massive campaign to condemn this decision was launched even before the speech. Vitriolic outbursts accusing Obama, at best, of weakness, incompetence and enormous concessions to Russia, and at worst, of something amounting to the betrayal of the country’s interests, inundated the US media. It has to be said, though, that there were also numerous supporters of Obama’s decision, even among prominent republicans, such as Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser under George Bush Sr., and many others.

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Posted by Edward Lozansky at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A developed country does not cancel its regularly scheduled census of population, especially when one is constitutionally required. So it is not a surprise that the decision of Rosstat, the Russian State Statistical Service to "postpone" the 2010 census on budgetary grounds was taken over the objection of Rosstat's highly regarded professional staff and at the behest of politicians in the Kremlin. The political leaders don't realize the seriousness of their mistake.

This may seem like a minor matter, except that it reflects high-level confusion about reality--the kind of reality a census captures. Indirectly, it damages economic prospects because it shows that public statistics cannot be accepted as reliable for planning and marketing purposes. If the Kremlin hopes that a several year delay will help it disguise negative demographic trends, it is deluded. Observers now will imagine far worse than an accurate census would show.

The decision is particularly unfortunate in light of the notorious statistical deceit that characterized the USSR. In that grim era statistics might as well have been another branch of state propaganda. Population and other numbers were so decrepit that the best analysis of the true condition of Russia demography probably came from Dr. Murray Feshbach, a brilliant analyst at the United States Census Bureau and, later, the State Department.

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Posted by Bruce Chapman at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, Poland's Lech Kaczynski, and America's Barack Obama

Russian authorities are happy, Czech and Polish officials feel as if they have been used and abused by the United States, and Republicans are outraged that President Obama has decided to scrap plans to build a missile defense in Eastern Europe. The stated purpose was to guard Europe against intimidation by a nuclear Iran, but Russia professed to feel threatened and encircled. Now, presumably, Russians don't feel threatened and Iranians feel liberated to move ahead with nuclear development.

But here is the real test of this decision: did the U.S. gain anything by it in terms of protection of Europe (and Israel) against Iranian nukes? The next few months will tell.

The USSR and the USA were strangely but truly united in working against nuclear proliferation for a couple of decades--the 70s and 80s. In my time as US ambassador to the UN Organizations in Vienna in the 1980s this was the one field of relations in which mutual cooperation was sincere and real. Indeed, the way in which the United States came closer to the USSR at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine in 1986 may be cited as a key turning point in the relationship that hastened "perestroika" and the thawing of the Cold War. The Soviets realized that we really didn't want to humiliate them, but only to help them deal with a real crisis. It led to a breakthrough that extended beyond the nuclear realm.

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Posted by Bruce Chapman at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Soldiers' Mothers, a human rights group in Russia, is trying to draw attention to what, in any country, would be a scandal demanding highest level attention: the seizure of conscripts' passports, the misuse of those conscripts in war and their forced re-enlistments.

Somehow, this kind of human rights issue doesn't get much attention outside Russia, and, sadly, it doesn't appear to register in high level domestic discussion inside the country. At least it is being reported and a spotlight is being shone on the corruption behind it.

Has anyone in the Kremlin thought about the possibility of a volunteer military? How effectively can an army of coerced soldiers operate in the 21st Century, especially when some are bamboozled into service?

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)