India’s Tea-Coffee Industry Sees Massive Growth in Global Trade

India’s Tea-Coffee Industry: The share of major plantation crops like spices, coffee, tobacco, and tea has increased in India’s agricultural exports. Their combined share was around 16 percent in 2023-24, which has jumped by 17.1% in 2024-25. In this way, it has increased from $7.82 billion to $9.16 billion.

This is how the growth came

The latest data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that the export of spices has increased marginally by 4.7 percent in FY 2025, from $4.25 billion a year ago to $4.45 billion. Tea shipments grew 10.8 percent from $0.83 billion to $0.92 billion. At the same time, tobacco exports have increased by an impressive 36.6 percent to $1.98 billion. Similarly, coffee exports have increased by 40.3 percent, from $1.29 billion to $1.81 billion.

Increased demand in the world

Commenting on tobacco exports, an industry expert said that tobacco exports were between $0.88 billion and $0.98 billion in 2014-15. Its shipment crossed $1 billion for the first time in 2022-23 and is now close to $2 billion. This shows how rapidly the demand for India’s tobacco has increased in the world.

Increase in total exports

At the same time, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce, India’s merchandise exports grew marginally by 0.7 percent to $41.97 billion in March this year. With this, India’s trade deficit has also increased. On the other hand, imports increased by 11.3 percent to $63.51 billion in March. Data shows that during the entire financial year 2024-25 (April-March), the country’s exports grew by just 0.08% to $437.42 billion. While imports jumped by 6.62% to $720.24 billion. This increased the trade deficit.

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Exports gained momentum

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said that exports have gained momentum from sectors like engineering, electronics, medicine, all types of textiles, rice, cotton yarn/fabric, plastic, coffee, spices, tea, and tobacco. Engineering exports stood at $116.67 billion in 2024-25, while they were $109.3 billion in 2023-24. Similarly, electronic exports stood at $38.38 billion and pharmaceutical exports at $30.47 billion.