COLOMBO: 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 on Thursday. 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 $1.26 billion in 2016 from $1.33 billion in 2015. Sri Lanka recorded its highest earnings of $1.63 billion in 2014.
