Sri Lanka’s tea e-auction platform marks first year with Rs. 175 billion sales
The Colombo Tea e-Auction platform, which was formed by CICRA Solutions Lts., is reportedly celebrating its first year of operations completing Rs. 175 billion worth of tea sold during 50 weekly sales. According to Sri Lanka Tea Board data, the Colombo Tea e-auction has reportedly facilitated sale of 276 million kilograms of tea during its first year of operations; the sales through the Tea e-Auction has also facilitated over US$ 1.2 billion export revenue through value addition (nearly Rs. 225 billion).
“The Colombo Tea e-Auction platform is used by all eight tea brokering companies in Sri Lanka and over 300 tea buyers and exporters; it has five concurrent virtual auction rooms. Users of the e-auction have access to power analytics and digital dashboards,” CICRA Holdings Group Director/CEO Boshan Dayaratne has been quoted as saying in the local media.
“The Colombo Tea Auction is one of the most complex and highly-regulated auctions in the world. We managed to incorporate almost all of these features into the Colombo Tea e-Auction platform. Our latest version of the e-Auction platform is now ready with the e-catalogue and the convenor portal to manage and monitor brokers’ cataloguing process. It also has the built-in optional auto bidding and pre-bidding feature, voice command, chat rooms, and API platform for real time secured data integration with industry stakeholders like the Sri Lanka Tea Board. The new version has the facility to enable live viewing access to factory owners,” Dayaratne has added, stating that they were now working to improve the traceability of tea using block chain technology.
The Colombo Tea e-Auction platform went live on 4 April 2020 following the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic and before the lockdown; the 137-year-old Colombo Tea Auction – the world’s oldest single origin tea auction to go live – had been operating a face-to-face manual outcry auction.
“When we launched the e-Auction platform, the first auction took five days as the users had to be trained so they could adopt the technology. With the users being trained on several occasions, today’s e-Auction is held for two days per week. Our expectation is to reduce the auction time to one day per week. We believe this could be achieved soon,” Dayaratne has been quoted as saying in the Daily FT.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka is focused on transforming its economy in to an e-economy. Also, the opportunities to expand digital platforms in the country were further boosted by the impact of the global Covid 19 pandemic. All this has created many business/investment opportunities in the country’s ICT and digital infrastructure development sectors. Sri Lanka is also in the process of becoming a business hub in the South Asian region given its geographical positioning in the Indian ocean and the many trade agreements as well as the trade concessions enjoyed by the country. Foreign businesses/investors could therefore explore business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s ICT and digital infrastructure development sectors.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20210409/Z_8 |