SL- Iran continues barter deal talks

Sri Lanka continues to engage Iranian authorities to initiate the proposed barter agreement of tea for oil, a top official said on Wednesday.

Sri Lanka Tea Board ( SLTB) Chairman Jayampathy Molligoda speaking with the Business Times said that Sri Lankan authorities have last week submitted more details as required by Iranian authorities to carry out the barter system of trade.

The tea for oil agreement would allow the Sri Lankan authorities to sell their teas for the exchange of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) debt re-payment.

Sri Lanka needs to work on its promotions based on the Tea Strategy Road Map 2030 drafted by engaging all stakeholders in the industry, Mr. Molligoda said.

“I don’t know if it’s long overdue,” he noted adding that however, without an overall strategic direction it would be difficult to have a global promotion campaign.

Parallel to this 10-year road map is another 5-year road map being drawn up, he said.

Commenting on the measures taken to ensure leaf quality standard improvement, he pointed out that exports had come down drastically due to poor leaf.

In this respect, he noted that they needed to ensure Total Quality Management ( TQM) that would be the basic improvement of ingredient.

Mr. Molligoda also said that they hope to achieve a breakthrough in the worker agreement to migrate to a revenue share or productivity linked model.

“That is the way forward for companies and workers,” he noted.

Speaking of the new markets to be explored the new Chairman said that they needed to ensure they do not forget the lost markets while working with the more sophisticated ones like Scandinavia, Europe and the US and those forming the specialty tea segment like Pakistan, Egypt and the UK.

Mr. Molligoda also pointed out the need for consensus for a move from commodity to beverage in the sale of value-added tea.