Azeem Ahmed Khan

A Chinese company plans to boost investment in Pakistan’s nascent tea sector from next year, betting on strong domestic demand and export prospects as the country seeks to reduce reliance on imports, a company executive said.

Pakistan, the world’s largest tea-importing country, offers “a lot of potential” for tea cultivation and value addition, said East Yang, General Manager of Triple Three Culture Pvt Ltd, which has been operating in the country for nearly three years.

 “The Triple Three Culture has been in Pakistan for almost three years,” Yang told Wealth Pakistan, adding that initial investments were launched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in partnership with the provincial government, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the agriculture department.

The company has begun work on tea seedlings and research collaboration with the National Tea and High Value Crops Research Institute, Shinkiari, he said, expressing confidence about long-term prospects. “We can see the prosperity and the demand for this country in the future,” Yang noted.

From next year, the company plans to scale up operations, focusing on localization, technology transfer and industrial processing. “Our future target is for the localization, local plantation, bringing the best technology from China to here, setting up our workshop, a factory, making a local brand together with the government,” he said.

The company also aims to develop export-oriented production, targeting Middle Eastern markets while positioning Pakistani tea as a recognized brand. “We can export to Middle East countries and make a famous Pakistan brand for tea,” Yang said, adding that improved quality would be central to the strategy.

Highlighting similarities in consumption patterns, he said tea is deeply embedded in daily life in both China and Pakistan. Beyond green and black tea, Triple Three plans to introduce jasmine tea, a popular variety in China, to Pakistani consumers.

“In future, for our plan, not only local green tea, black tea, we also bring the jasmine tea,” Yang said. “Jasmine tea is very popular in China. We can bring the new jasmine tea to this country.”

Meanwhile, Ms Kiyal Akmatbek, Head of Office at United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Wealth Pakistan that Pakistan’s heavy dependence on imported tea underscores the urgency of translating pilot initiatives into a viable commercial model backed by strong government support.

Referring to the recent launch of Pakistan’s first-ever domestic tea commercialization strategy, she said: “The main objective of the project is actually to come up with a commercialization model that the government could take up and implement for the tea sector in Pakistan.”

Akmatbek stressed that sustained government backing would be critical to turning FAO’s strategy into reality. “The most important and critical element here is that the government has to extend enormous support to make sure that this entire strategy becomes a reality,” she said.

She said that demand poses no constraint in a country where tea is an integral part of daily life. “Pakistan is a big consumer of tea. It is part of the culture and part of the daily lifestyle, so the demand side is there and marketing is not an issue,” Akmatbek said.

The key challenge, she added, is the absence of domestic supply, which has left Pakistan highly reliant on foreign markets. “The only problem we have seen is that there is no supply at the local level, and Pakistan is very much dependent on imports for this crop,” she said.

She added that FAO is also engaging development partners to mobilize financial support, particularly for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which, she said, has been scientifically proven to be the most suitable region for tea cultivation in Pakistan. “We are looking forward to all kinds of support that will help make this strategy a reality for Pakistan,” Akmatbek said.

Credit: INP-WealthPk