Investing in the world’s most expensive raw material
View(s):Sadaharitha Plantations, the leader in commercial forestry in Sri Lanka, recently won the Gold at the National Green Awards.
The company manages over 2,000 acres of forest plantations of Sandalwood, Teak, Mahogany, Rambutan and Agarwood.
In a media release, the company said that the hope of getting an attractive return is what propels most individuals to choose from the wide array of investment choices available today.
The emerging option that is now favoured by farsighted investors is commercial forestry. It is not only beneficial to planet Earth, making the world lush and green, but more importantly it helps to mitigate global warming by reducing greenhouse carbon emissions and the investors are able to reap a bountiful harvest in eight years.
Chairman of Sadaharitha, Sathish Navarathna said “We have a portfolio of over 26,000 long-term customers in Sri Lanka while a new segment of investors are emerging rapidly from overseas as well, especially for Agarwood which is better known as ‘Wellapatta’ here. There is a high demand internationally for Agarwood chips and oil which are used for the world’s most expensive brands of perfumes. Investors everywhere are eager to take advantage of the opportunity this provides.”
Mr. Navarathna further added “Agarwood, especially high grade Agarwood resin is the world’s most expensive raw material worth US$50,000 per kg. Agarwood oil fetch $30,000 per kg. The market for Agarwood is enormous because only about 60 per cent of the international demand is currently met. We have 344 acres of Agarwood and are expanding this further via our out-grower system to meet the emerging demand for Agarwood.”
Sadaharitha also focuses on conducting research on enhancing the production of Agarwood resin. The company says it has the patent within Sri Lanka for the use of an advanced proprietary technology called CA-Kit developed in USA and the expertise to manage this technology to promote the production of the resin in Agarwood. A unique property of the species is that it develops the resin naturally as a defense mechanism, when the tree is damaged.