Ceylon Tea unable to meet demand
This year total Ceylon tea production is likely to achieve about 275 million kg, a significant drop in production compared to previous years where the annual average was over 300 million kg.
Sri Lanka gained from the crop failure and shutdown in India this year as a result of which there was a crop loss mostly from North India, stock broker’s analyst Anil Cooke told the Business Times.
“We believed there was a higher consumption due to the shutdown and the health benefits of tea,” he noted.
Crop loss for Sri Lanka started in 2019 that was carried into this year with a short supply added to which the drought impacted on production levels. However, prices have remained attractive for the past so many months.
Going forward into next year he noted that they expect the situation to remain tough in the first quarter as they have observed a drop in the availability of fertilizer at the moment.
Production in the first quarter will depend on the weather pattern and the availability of fertilizer.
In the meantime the Regional Plantation Companies ( RPCs) met Plantation Minister Ramesh Pathirana on Thursday and had insisted that the Rs.1000 wage proposed in the budget could be achieved through the productivity based model as proposed by them.
Planters Association Media spokesman and Hayleys Plantations Managing Director Roshan Rajadurai told the Business Times that this was a very short meeting and they had briefed the minister on the fact that at a time when almost every other industry is on a declining trend it was unfair to insist that the plantations should increase wages.
He pointed out that they were the only employers looking after about one million residents including workers on their plantations and that except for a few isolated cases they have been able to contain the spread of COVID-19 on the plantations.
Mr. Rajadurai stressed that the industry has been struggling due to an oversupply as a result of a drop in demand as most restaurants have closed up in other parts of the world and this has contributed to a disruption of the social life with a drop in those moving out of their homes.