The Sri Lankan Minister for Plantation Industries, Navin Dissanayake, has appealed to the country’s tea industry to change with the changing domestic, international and climatic conditions so that tea remains one of Sri Lanka’s top foreign exchange earners.

Briefing the media on plans to celebrate 150 years of the tea industry in Sri Lanka, Dissanayake said that the accent from now onwards should be on quality rather than quantity, and earning more from less, in the international market.

At present, tea is the fourth largest foreign exchange earner bringing in US$ 1.5 billion per annum. It is also one of the largest employers serving 2 million people directly or indirectly. Fortunately, Sri Lanka is also able to sell every kilo of tea it produces.

But the industry has its share of problems. The cost of tea production is higher in Sri Lanka than in Kenya and India, which are the top producing and exporting countries. But this cannot be an excuse for not  being competitive in the world market, the Minister said. Japan, where the cost of production is high, is able to sell its teas at high prices. Quality Ceylon Tea has a high-end niche market world-wide, and this should be capitalized on.

High labor cost is cited as one of the ills of the industry. Some steps, albeit unsatisfactory, have been taken to incorporate productivity norms in the wage agreement entered into with the workers ‘unions recently. One way to address the issue of productivity is to give plots of plantation land to workers’ families for them to cultivate on their own and sell the produce to the plantation companies. But this is being resisted by the unions as they fear it may impair workers’ unity or the unions’ hold on the workers. The Minister said he believes that this issue can be sorted out through discussions with the stakeholders.

-PTI
-Agencies