MEETING AT INDIAN EMBASSY
A meeting was organized at the Indian Embassy on October 16, 2003 to discuss the problems, prospects and way forward for Indian teas in the Russian Federation/CIS and Baltic nations. The meeting was attended by the visiting ITA team, merchant exports operating in Russia and represen-tatives of the State Bank of India and Canara Bank _ both will shortly open full-fledged branches in Moscow. The meeting was later addressed by H.E. Mr. K. Raghunath, Ambassador of India to the Russian Federation.
The DTP Moscow said that the ITA delegation's visit will help correct the two lacunae affecting Indian presence in the Russian market - (1) Quantity Gap: Indian exports have slipped from about 100 mkgs in 1999-2000 to about 45 mkgs in 2002-03; (2) Quality Gap: Demand for low quality teas by the Russian companies in the aftermath of the bubble burst in August 1998. The random use of the 'Indian Tea' tag and mislabelling of teas caused the Indian brew being associated with "low quality". He assured that the ITA producer-exporters were looking at incremental in the market.
He further informed that the Tea Board's Moscow office has chalked out a strategy for a 'Joint Promotion Campaign' to create awareness of the Indian Tea Board logo and simultaneously building brand equity of some In-dian/Indo-Russian brands which were 100 per cent India-sourced. The strategy involved _ (1) Putting in place the foundation of a monitoring mechanism for administering the use of the 'Indian Tea' logo; (2) Creating a steady supply chain of packets made by Indian and Russian companies with Indian partners; (3) Build the brand equity of the logo through adver-tising in the electronic and print media.
The DTP further mentioned that the Tea Board's strategy of locating a bou-tique/bar in Moscow, showcasing the finest Indian teas, has been champi-oned by the Indian Ambassador in Moscow.
The Ambassador, H.E. Mr. K. Raghunath, took cognizance of ITA's view point that while merchant exporters have been imparting value to the Indo-Russian trade by offering blends at standards demanded by the Russian market, the producer-exporters' core competence lay in manufacturing tea of good quality. The producers would, therefore, ideally look to line-by-line business which would have to be based on importers being kept fully informed of the seasonal patterns of the Indian produce as well as be given the assurance to deliver a quality product as fresh as possible through effi-cient shipment and logistics management.The Ambassador was also

briefed about the effort to put in place an "in-centive scheme" to alter the production mix of Indian tea in favour of the Orthodox variety.Mr. Raghunath assured the team that he would place a strong recommendation to the Ministry of Commerce to introduce an ap-propriate incentive scheme to induce Orthodox production since that was vital in servicing the requirements of the Russian importers.
TEA TASTING SESSION
A tea tasting session was held at the Institute of Physical-Chemical Biology, Moscow State University, courtesy Dr. Ashish Ranjan Das, General Director of CISCO-PRODEX, and a joint venture engaged in certification/testing of products. The delegation members laid out their teas which were sampled by leading Russian companies.

ITA members and delegates at the tea tasting session organised in Kolkata after the visit.

EQUIPMENT IMPORT SOPS
Pursuant to ITA's ongoing efforts at securing grant of duty concessions on import of machinery for quality upgradation, the Government of India has reduced the Special Additional Duty to 'nil' vide a notification dated De-cember 10, 2003.
Hence, the duty structure now is:
STANARD RATE                           : 5%
ADDITIONAL DUTY                     : NIL
SPECIAL ADDITIONAL DUTY     : NIL
The following machinery will attract only five per cent import duty (addi-tional and special additional duties being nil)-
*Tea bagging machine, falling under tariff item 8422 30 00
*Tea packaging machine, falling under tariff item 8422 30 00
*Colour sorting machine, falling under sub-heading 8433 60
*Tea leaf-cutting rolling machine, falling under tariff item 8438 80 40
*Mechanical harvester, falling under tariff item 8433 59 00
*Tea pruning machine, falling under tariff item 8201 60 00
*Mist lower, falling under tariff item 8414 59 20
*Sprayer, falling under tariff item 8424 81 00
The revised Customs Duty rate will be valid till April 30, 2005.