UN meeting on tea opens in Colombo

The inauguration of the 20th Session of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Inter-Governmental Group on Tea hosted by Sri Lanka was held last night in Colombo.

The sessions proper will begin today and go on until 1 February with the participation of delegates from over 25 countries.  

Hosted by Sri Lanka Tea Board the participating countries include India, China, Kenya, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Africa, and Argentina while the USA, Canada, UK, Pakistan, Russia and UAE.

A statement issued by the Tea Board said the focus of the biannual FAO/IGG sessions is to discuss and resolve issues related to production, marketing, pricing and consumption of tea faced by the international tea industry in a single platform and discuss the way forward for the next 10 years.

Maximum residue level of pesticides in tea, the impact of climate change, market development, and the medium-term outlook for tea are some of the major issues to be addressed at the meeting.

During the session, an interactive electronic forum would be launched to facilitate interaction among tea producing countries, particularly, during the two-year period between two sessions of FAO/IGG on Tea.

The UN FAO/ IGG on Tea, which was established in 1969, is a forum where important policies and strategies related to the global tea industry are formulated. Its Membership is open to all the members/associate members of UN who are interested in tea production, consumption and trading.