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Increase in Sri Lanka’s tea production

Increase in Sri Lanka’s tea production

The Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) has announced that it is expecting to reach the 300 million kilo production goal this year.
Despite Sri Lanka’s tea production recording an increase, the present erratic weather patterns are expected to foil the government’s 2017 production goal.
The annual crop production in 2015 was recorded at 328.8 million kilos but 2016 which was considered a particularly bad year for the tea industry, saw supply fall to 292.6 million kilos with tea prices and yields being severely impacted.
The January-July 2017 production of High Grown teas dipped to 0.6% (40 million kilos) compared to the same period in 2016.
Medium-Growns had picked up 1.1% for the same period with 27.9 million kilos produced in 2017 against 27.6 million kilos in 2016. Low-Growns were up by 5.9% to 113.5 million kilos January-July 2017 compared to 107.2 million kilos during the same 2016 period. Exports for the period January-July 2017 reached 165.3 million kilos, down 4% compared to the 2016 figure of 172.1 million kilos. Total value of exports in the 7-month review period reached the highest ever value at LKR. 132.4 billion compared with LKR. 104.9 billion in 2016 and was well above the previous record of LKR. 123.2 billion achieved in 2014 when a much larger quantity of 187 million kilos was exported during the January -July period.

OSL TAKE:

Sri Lanka’s tea sector has seen many industry setbacks, especially with failure on the part of authorities’ to safeguard the “Ceylon Tea” brand which has resulted in “Ceylon Tea” now being produced in Kenya which has surpassed Sri Lankan production.
However, improvement in both tea production levels and record export values paint an optimistic picture for the future, with potential for interested persons to enter into tea value-addition thereby injecting much-needed innovation to the industry and opening it up to the global demand for such value-added products.

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Article Code : VBS/AT/29082017/Z_3

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