Sri Lanka still imports over 80% of coconut oil per annum spending several billions of rupees, said Coconut Development Authority (CDA) Chairman, Keerthi Sri Weerasinghe. Self sufficiency in this segment is very far, he said..
He said that the total local requirement is around 240,000 metric tons per year and around 20% of this is supplied locally by coconut oil and Palm oil producers. (This is around 42,000 tonnes of edible oil).
“However unlike the tea and Rubber sectors, we do not see large players in the business and 90% is dominated by the SME sector.” He said that in a bid to bridge this gap the government has distributed over 4 million coconut trees to the community. “In addition coconut nursery network is re-developed while Hybrid trees too are introduced to increase production.” Weerasinghe said that according to new research current local production could be increased by adding more water to trees as the current average is far below the expected 40 liters per tree.
He said that there is a steady increase of coconut export products; the revenue from USD 661 million last year is expected to increase to USD 770 by the end of the year. “We expect to pass the USD one billion market next year by adding more value addition to current exports.”
A coconut export processing zone is one the cards to be built at Hambantota.
Speaking flanked by Director General of Sri Lanka Standards Institute (SLSI) Dr. Siddika Senarathne he said that the coconut quality issues have now been ironed out and the public do not have to be concerned about this as several new quality control measures are implemented. (SS)
0 comments: