India has launched an aggressive campaign to boost tea exports to Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and Iraq apart from traditional buyers of Britain and Russia, Indo- Asian News Service (IANS) reported here Monday.

It is reported that a 12-member team of Indian tea officials, planters and traders returned Sunday after touring Pakistan to market the beverage.

IANS reported that Pakistan last year imported about 100 million kg of tea from Kenya and 16 million kg from India out of a total annual requirement of 170 million kg.

"The visit to Pakistan was extremely encouraging and we hope we are able to increase the market share of tea in that country," IANS quoted Dhiraj Kakaty, secretary of the Assam chapter of the Indian Tea Association (in East India's Asam region), the country's apex tea administration body, as saying.

The Indian team visited the tea markets of Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi in Pakistan.

India is the world's largest tea producer followed by China.

It is reported that countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and Iraq figured prominently in the export list.

Source: Xinhua