Pelwatte Dairy Industries (Pvt) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pelwatte Sugar Industries Ltd, will soon be exporting butter to Japan and milk powder to China.
Sri Lanka has reached self-sufficiency in milk and that is why we have decided to export butter to Japan and milk powder to China, Pelwatte Dairy Industries ( Pvt) Ltd Chairman Ariyaseela Wickemanayake told Daily News Finance yesterday.
He said that the company will be initially, exporting 50 tonnes of butter to Japan and 100 tonnes of milk powder to China and will gradually keep on increasing the export with the passage of time. He also said that the company has also informed the Sri Lanka Export Development Board and Sri Lanka’s missions in Tokyo and Beijing to coordinate with the embassies to create markets at that end and added that the company will be participating in Food Exhibitions in both capitals.
There will be such an exhibition in Beijing in the first week of November and we will be participating. There will be similar ones in Japan in the future and we will be going there as well, he said.
He said that there was a daily production of 250,000 litres of milk a day which was far in excess of the local demand that was why he was reluctantly compelled to look for export markets.
He said that these exports will also enable to set off trade balances with both countries with the balance heavily weighing towards them. Sri Lanka spends annually US $ 5 billion in the import of Japanese vehicles and spares etc and a further US $ 6 billion from China for the construction of highways, airports, ports and other infrastructure as well.
It is high time that the Government prohibits all powdered milk imports from New Zealand and Australia as well, he said.
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