Tea export competitiveness and the nexus between tea export and economic growth: The cases of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka

Long since the end of the British India regime, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka have produced a significant volume of tea which continues to bring them invaluable foreign currency earnings through exports. Our paper explores the tea export competitiveness of these countries by employing the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index, and analyses the nexus between tea export and economic growth over the period from 1980 to 2018 using several dynamic econometric approaches. Results suggest that Bangladesh has lost its tea export competitiveness over the last decade. India posted moderate performance, while Sri Lanka consistently kept its dominant position. Further, the Johansen Cointegration test outcomes report no long-run relationship between tea export and economic growth across all the countries. The Granger Causality outcomes illustrate that only in Sri Lanka is it the case that tea export causes short-run economic growth. Lastly, the impulse response function projects tea export and economic growth, taking into consideration the response of each to a shock from the other. Extrapolation from the results indicate that, in contrast to the cases of Bangladesh and India (where no direct relationship was found), tea export and economic growth are intimately interconnected in Sri Lanka. This article further recommends effective policies so that economic growth in these countries can remain steady and that their tea industries can thrive.