Ceylon Tea enjoyed near monopoly in the UK. But end user preferences for tea in that location from other origins caused virtual black balling of our product, now relegated to the annals of painful history. So too did vagaries of market forces affect ‘Ceylon Tea ‘ sales to Egypt and Pakistan. de Silva said (Our weekly tea market reports identified this tragedy quite regularly over the past few months),.

Deputy Minister of Finance Dr. Sarath Amunugama was chief guest. Secretary Ministry of Plantation Industries Ms. Indrani Sugathadasa was guest of honour.

The Minister conceded that tea did bring in substantial sums in revenue. Having said that taking an attitude of tongue-in- cheek he also pointedly reverted to the impact of house maids who also contributed forex in Billions to the state. Simultaneously he said the government had taken note that tea earned some 1.2 billion dollars for the first time last year which was significant and clear signs that Tea was moving forward.

He agreed tea was a net foreign exchange earner unlike such other industries who had to depend on imports to add value to their products.

One other point of importance Amunugama said was that the plantation sector had not laid of workers in any category in the face of global recession. This was note worthy.

Quite within unavoidable circumstances he also said the President had created dynamism in the commercial sector through the establishment of peace and urged distinct spread of commercial activity now that peace had been established.

There was however no tangible policy inferences in reply to President CTTA,s concerns on salutary assistance that the government should extend.

De Silva in his report was critical of regressive support from the State and made the point that since Estates were re-privatized overall improvement to the industry in the short run of approximately ten years yielded crop increases of some 50 percent. Additionally huge losses sustained by the industry during state ownership and enforced compulsory influx of funds to prop the Plantation sector during those desultory 17 odd years was now not an item of expenditure to the government. The loss situation sustained at that time was reversed and full impact of the private sector unfailingly caused emergence of tea being an embellished icon contributing quite positively to the wellbeing of the country.

The 300 million kilo production figure was surpassed some years back and contribution of the industry to forex earnings was not insignificant. It still is the largest net earner which Dr. Amunugama described as being a solid pillar sustaining the exchequer. De Silva said the state has consistently earned income year in year out from the industry.

He derided periodic garbled disinformation issued to the press at the behest of individual whim of some government sources. These bits of muddled ‘news’ designed to score brownie points for whatever reasons to perhaps prop sagging ego, were causing serious misconceptions internationally. Stemming from such negative pronouncements Tea from Sri Lanka was badly battered and concerns were that negative impacts would affect sales globally. The shattering fall off would not only affect local representation for tea, but discombobulate mind set that the tea industry was in quandary, and that all was not well. Jaded views such as those illustrated pointedly caused confusion over- seas.

The TRI came in for some flack because areas of research could stand much room for improvement he said. Of recent origin Sri Lanka was not represented at the international Tea conference in Rome, because some Government official thought tea was not that important to be represented internationally. This he said had reverse impact and the industry did see some residual fall-out.