Former Tea Board chairperson says many things achieved during her tenure
View(s):Janaki Kuruppu, Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Tea Board, announced her resignation this week saying she stepped down after a record-breaking year for Ceylon Tea.
In a statement to the media, she said the past three years from 2011-2014 saw a renaissance in Ceylon Tea with the year 2013 breaking all records and the 2014 figures just released surpassing even that of 2013, recording the highest ever export earnings of Rs. 213.31 billion (US$ 1.65 billion) which is a 6.6 per cent growth over 2013 and a FOB price of Rs. 649.44 per KG, which is a 4.1 per cent growth over 2013 which were all records for the 147 year old history of the Sri Lankan tea industry.
“The record breaking streak did not end with just these statistics, the industry also recorded the highest proportion of value added tea recording 65.2 per cent of the total exports which is the highest for any tea exporting country. With these high volumes and values of exports, Sri Lankan tea exports reached the number two rank among global tea exporters by mid-2014 surpassing China,” Ms Kuruppu said.
She noted that these commendable results were achieved through a joint effort of the industry and all other stakeholder institutions in the tea industry spearheaded by the Sri Lanka Tea Board as the apex body of the industry.
Ms. Kuruppu said that under her leadership, the Sri Lanka Tea Board went through a revolutionary change in structure, facilities, employee training and motivation and the overall approach to its role as the regulator and facilitator of the tea industry.
“One of the first things undertaken by me was to improve the operating systems in the institution with respect to human resources and IT. The institution was stuck in terms of lack of sufficient cadre and due to the lack of computer hardware and software systems that could perform the functions of the board efficiently and accurately. The board was finally able to fill most of its cadre which was earlier suspended by a court order and now the staff is given opportunities for regular training and subject to performance evaluations. For the first time in the history of the board, an outbound training camp was held for the junior and senior management staff in order to improve leadership skills and team building,” she said.
She said the Sri Lanka Tea Board made history in the promotional activities as well during this period. An international Tea Producer Forum was set up at the initiation of Sri Lanka in January 2013 with seven tea producing countries as its founder members. This was achieved after 30 years of failed attempts to set up such a forum by these tea producing countries.
“Another historical first was when Sri Lanka Tea Board became the international sponsor of Sri Lanka cricket for three years thus bringing together two world renowned unmatchable brands belonging to Sri Lanka. This could be called the first major initiative of the global campaign for Ceylon Tea and was done with the objective of linking the country Sri Lanka to Ceylon Tea and to obtain maximum mileage on the awareness for the brand on international television channels especially targeting new and lapsed markets for Ceylon Tea,” she added in the statement.