By Syed Zarir Hussain,
Guwahati, March 3 (IANS) Myanmar Saturday sought Indian technology to help boost its tea production, besides collaborating with the regional governments in the northeast to promote medicinal herbs in its country.
"We are keen on importing the best of tea technology available here to boost production of the beverage in our country. We are already in touch with the Indian tea industry to help us in producing more tea and improving quality," Thung Kyaw, Myanmar's deputy director of Border Trade, said here.
Kyaw is currently in the northeastern state of Assam leading a 31-member business delegation to study prospects of trade and commerce in sectors like tea, herbal medicines, textiles, and fish farming. The Myanmarese business delegation is visiting a number of tea gardens and herbal medicinal farms in Assam as part of a three-day visit that ends Sunday.
"We have had a very good meeting with traders of the northeast and want India to help us in promoting our tea interests," Kyaw said.
Myanmar produces about 90 million kilograms of tea annually with about 65 percent of the crop grown in northern Shan State and the remaining in southern Shan State, Sagaing and Mandalay divisions and Kachin State.
Myanmar produces three types of tea - green, black and pickled. Green tea accounts for 52 percent of the production, black tea 31 percent and pickled tea at 17 percent - which is an essential ingredient of a popular national snack.
Tea is also used in various religious and social functions, including royal ceremonies.
"Assam tea is known worldwide and hence our interest in borrowing methods and techniques from this part of the world," the Myanmarese official said.
The northeastern state of Assam is considered the heart of India's tea industry with the state accounting for about 55 percent of the country's total annual tea production of 955 million kilogram last year.