President says will request Putin to withdraw tea ban

President Maithripala Sirisena said today that he would make an official request from Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw the temporary ban on Sri Lanka tea imports.

The Russian Federation on Thursday announced that tea imports from Sri Lanka had been banned due to the detection of a single specimen of the agricultural pest, the beetle Trogoderma Granarium in the packaging material of a consignment of tea shipped from Sri Lanka.