20 October 2017 10:29 am
Sri Lanka’s tea output jumped 27.6 percent due to good weather in September and a lower base last year, the state-run Tea Board said yesterday.
Production in the first nine months of the year rose 6.2 percent on the same period last year. “There is a jump on month on month because last year same month production was affected by the bad weather,” Sri Lanka Tea Board Director General S.A. Siriwardena told Reuters.
“The good weather that helped to increase the production (means that) this year we will have a better production than last year.”
Siriwardena said the country could achieve 305-310 million kilos by the end of the year.
Lower use of fertilisers, weak market prices, bad weather and a government ban on the use of pesticides resulted in a decline in production last year.
Sri Lanka’s tea output hit a seven-year low in 2016, falling 11.1 percent in its third straight year of declining production. Tea export volume dropped to a 14-year low in 2016, broker data showed.
Export earnings fell 5.3 percent to US$1.26 billion in 2016 from US$1.33 billion in 2015. Sri Lanka recorded its highest earnings of US $1.63 billion in 2014.