COLOMBO, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka will launch a 50-million-U.S.-dollar global tea promotion, starting from Russia this September to boost awareness of Ceylon Tea among 12 important markets, Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake, quoted in local media reports said here Friday.
Dissanayake told journalists that this promotion will be the first of its kind in 150 years that the government promotes Ceylon Tea on such a large scale.
The promotion in Russia will be followed by a mega advertising and publicity campaign held in Ukraine in October and then mega advertising campaigns in Japan and China at the end of the year.
The other target markets within the campaign include the U.S., Australia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Chile and Germany.
"We have finally been able to get over the government tender procedures on the Ceylon Tea global promotion campaign and it will be launched in September in Russia. A total budget of Rs.5.5 billion (50 million U.S. dollars) has been allocated for this campaign," Dissanayake said.
With a better year expected for the tea industry, the government said it was targeting a revenue of 1.6 billion U.S. dollars from its tea exports in 2019.
