Official sources informed that the sub-committee on tea of the ISO is very important for Indian tea industry since it is concerned for developing standards for quality tea, allied products and packaging substances. This committee, has around 50 member countries and also has several active observer countries under its fold.

Sources said that the tea sub-committee of ISO, secretariat at the British Standard Institute, London, has made a request to India, a member country, in 1998, to organise the 18th meeting of the committee in India during 1999. "India has accepted the request of ISO throughthe National Standard Institute, that is the BIS to host it in Calcutta under the sponsorship of the Tea Board", the official added.

It is significant to point out here that on the quality front, India is the only country to have initiated the process of Hazard Critical Control Points (HACCP) in tea in collaboration with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The tea sub-committee had held its earlier meetings, every alternate year in different member countries, like in China (1987), Jakarta (1989), Britain (1994), Sri Lanka (1997) and Istanbul (1992). This year it will be held in India and considering the importance of this meeting for the India tea industry, the Tea Board has taken care to organise it in Calcutta so as to facilitate exposure to the tea industry on ISO standards and to have interactions directly with the concerned scientists and delegates.

Besides the meeting of this sub-committee, an international tea millennium conference, the first of its kind in the new millennium, is being planned atNew Delhi in March 2000. The aim of this convention is to project the Indian tea in the world market. It is felt that the brand equity of the country's commodities should go up in the international scenario. As a step towards this, recently the Tea Board along with Upasi and other tea trade associations had organised an international tea convention at Kochi to create an awareness of the current status on the range, quality and availability of south Indian tea.

The proposed millennium tea conference would have wider participations from various countries and would be organised on a much bigger scale, projecting the complete Indian tea scenario before the international community.

In addition to this, it may be noted here that the Tea Board will also be part of the `Experiencing India' event at the Mall of America, Minnesota from September 10 to 19 this year.

Interestingly, Mall of America attracts more visitors annually than Disney World, Graceland and Grand Canyon put together.

As part of an exercise toshowcase countries from different parts of the world, Mall of America, along with the Indian Trade promotion Organisation (ITPO) have conceptualised the exhibition-Experience India.