SL tea output rises 6.14% YoY in August

REUTERS: Sri Lanka’s tea output rose 6.14 percent due to good weather in August, the state-run Tea Board said on Wednesday, while industry officials also attributed the gain to lower production last year.

Production in the first eight months of the year edged up 3.99 percent compared to the same period last year.

“It’s the good weather that helped to increase the production, this year we will have a better production than last year,” Sri Lanka Tea Board Director-General S.A. Siriwardena told Reuters.

“We will be able to achieve 305-310 million kilos by the end of this year.”

Anil Cooke, head of Asia Siyaka Commodities said the low base also helped.

Lower use of fertilisers, weak market prices 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 due to adverse weather. 

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.