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Diplomacy prevented a crisis from brewing: SL Ambassador to Russia
Prompt action to lift the Russian ban on Sri Lankan tea saved the industry from plunging into a crisis, Dr. Saman Weerasinghe, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Russia said.
Dr. Weerasinghe pointed out that the Russian Federation was the biggest buyer of Ceylon Tea. As such, had the ban continued, it would have resulted in massive job losses and a devastating impact on the country’s economy.
The ban, which was imposed on December 18, was lifted on December 30. The Ambassador claimed the excellent relations between the two countries were a key factor in overturning the ban, noting that President Maithripala Sirisena wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Dr. Weerasinghe also stressed that the larvae of the Khapra beetle, which was found inside a container of a tea consignment to Russia, was never found in the tea itself.
“The Russian authorities made it clear that it was found in the packaging material and not in the tea. The containers come from various countries. They had not been fumigated before the tea was packed. The Russian authorities pointed this out after they inspected the container in question,” he explained.
Dr. Weerasinghe said the President, the Plantation Industries Minister and the Foreign Affairs Ministry had been in constant contact with him from the start. “I spoke to officials of Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture and they said we needed to get a team of our experts to Russia to resolve the matter. We arranged that. A lot of work was done at the diplomatic level to resolve the matter quickly.”
The Ambassador strongly refuted claims that Sri Lanka’s ban on asbestos had led to Russia imposing a tit-for-tat ban on Ceylon Tea. He remarked that Sri Lanka had sent a team of experts to Russia to study the asbestos issue and report back. This was done on a request by the Russian authorities. The team would submit their report and the President would make a decision on the asbestos ban, Dr. Weerasinghe elaborated. “This was why some people connected the two events, but Russia never mentioned asbestos during our talks on the tea issue.”
He also expressed confidence that the incident had not resulted in long-term damage to the Ceylon Tea brand in Russia. If anything, the publicity gained from the issue in Russia would likely result in Ceylon Tea becoming more popular, he stated.