Dubai Tea Trading Centre transacts record volumes in 2010

The Dubai Tea Trading Centre (‘DTTC’), an initiative of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority (DMCC), announced that it transacted a record 10.6 million kilos of multi origin tea in 2010, up 41% on the 7.5 million kilos handled in 2009. 

Dubai’s strategic location has helped the Emirate become an important regional centre for tea value addition and transhipment services. Tea imports into Dubai grew 15% to 116.5 million kilos from January to November 2010, compared to the same period in 2009. This was in part due to substantially higher crop yields from major black tea producing countries such as Kenya and Sri Lanka in 2010.  Another contributing factor was good demand at higher prices due to the shortfall in stocks, from lack of rain in those countries, carried over from 2009. 

Malcolm Wall Morris, Chief Executive Officer, DMCC, commented:  “DTTC continues to go from strength to strength and has produced another record year in 2010.  Dubai, given its strategic location, ease of transacting business and modern port facilities, is increasingly recognised as an important hub by major tea producers, buyers and blenders and DTTC, in particular, as an outsourcing centre that can offer customers high quality, reliable and scalable services. The Middle East and CIS countries currently accounts for over 27% of the total tea exports from the producing countries..  Given those region’s fast growing populations we expect DTTC to continue its strong growth and to further enhance the tea trade through Dubai.” 

DMCC, the free zone authority for the Jumeirah Lakes Towers (‘JLT’), set up DTTC in 2005 to facilitate the expansion of the tea trade through Dubai.  DTTC’s modern facilities in Jebel Ali which cover almost 24,000 sq m, offer temperature-controlled blending facilities for both black teas and leaf teas; temperature-controlled packaging of tea bags and loose tea and storage for up to 5000 metric tonnes of bulk teas at any given time.  DTTC is building a new ‘tea tag’ facility offering clients outsourced labelling for tea bags; further increasing its backward integration. 

(DTTC has members from across the tea trade supply chain including tea producers, exporters, regional importers and international merchants.  

Sanjay Sethi, Director, DTTC, said: “Volumes across our value added services of blending, tea bag packing and loose tea packing grew over 100% compared to 2009.  As the customer demand for these services continued to grow during the course of 2010, DTTC invested in machines and manpower to cater to this additional requirement.” 

Dubai remains the second largest export destination for both Indian and Sri Lankan tea. DTTC presently stores tea from 13 producing countries, including Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Nepal, China and Iran. In keeping with its mandate to further increase the tea trade in and through Dubai, DTTC also facilitates sales with buyers in the GCC countries, as well as Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Afghanistan, UK and the CIS countries and has plans to expand its services to other Middle Eastern and European markets.