ISLAMABAD Pakistan is one of the world's largest importers of tea, spending $300 million annually on the national beverage, but it is trying to save greenbacks with a green revolution.

There is no history of tea-growing in Pakistan, which depends on Kenya, Sri Lanka and even India to ensure that its 145 million citizens have their daily cups.

The recently set up Tea Research Institute of Pakistan (TRIP) is enticing farmers with cash and other subsidies to dump vegetables and wheat in favor of the potentially more lucrative tea.

At the picturesque village of Shinkiari, 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of here, the institute has established Pakistan's first tea factory.

The Chinese-made plant inaugurated by President Pervez Musharraf in September last year is expected to produce eight million kilograms (18 million pounds) of black tea this year.

This is modest by international standards, but for TRIP it is encouraging.

"There is great potential to cultivate tea in the mountain slopes in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)," the institute's scientific officer Mushtaq Ahmad told AFP. "The area we now have under tea will be more than doubled to 300 acres (120 hectares) next year."

Ahmad said the institute estimated that about 150,000 acres (68,000 hectares) of land in the NWFP could be brought under an ambitious tea project.

The districts of Mansehra and Batgram which lie along the silk route and swat region of the NWFP are immediate candidates for the tea revolution.

Pakistan is getting help from China, the home of the tea bush botanically known as Camellia Sinensis. The bush was taken from China and popularized in other South Asian countries by the British colonizers in the mid-19th century.

Chinese technology is used to make black and green tea and a combination of "orthodox" and "CTC", or cut, tear and curl, teas at the Pakistan TRIP factory, Ahmad said.

The CTC teas are relatively poorer in quality than the orthodox teas and used in tea-bags.

Sri Lanka is the world's largest exporter of tea, selling 295 million kilograms of mostly orthodox teas last year, when India was the world's biggest producer with a crop of 853.7 million kilograms, much of it consumed at home.

Some of the Indian tea is smuggled to Pakistan through third countries, especially Afghanistan, according to tea trade sources here.

Pakistan officially legally imports about 12 to 13 billion rupees ($200 to $216 million) while another five to six billion rupees' ($83 to $100 million) worth of tea is smuggled in.

The numbers show the merit of Pakistan growing its own tea.

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock decided in May 2001 to offer more incentives to tea-growers.

"In order to reduce the burden of import bill and to encourage establishment of orchards, the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan started its program of lending to the tea sector," a government official said.

The bank's figures show the bank has loaned 2.17 million rupees ($36,000) to 22 farmers who have cultivated tea on 35 acres (15.9 hectares) of land.

Its credit Director R. A. Mazhar said the loan scheme was initially introduced in 1991, but there had been few takers. In the past year, there has been renewed interest with the commissioning of the tea factory.

Multi-national tea company Lever Brothers has also set up a manufacturing plant in Pakistan and started propagating tea in the mountainous regions conducive for the crop.

Lever Brothers have 236 acres under cultivation, but their plants are younger than those in the 114 acres planted under the TRIP program, officials said.