Financial Times

Plantations
Major firms pull out
Major Sri Lankan companies have withdrawn from the plantation sector due to the absence of a coherent state policy on this important sector of the economy, a top business leader said last week.

Rajan Yatawara, chairman of Hayleys Group, said the ‘paucity of explicit expressions of state support would be discouraging to investors seeking a long term involvement with the plantation industry and also inhibit the continued participation of established conglomerates.”

Writing in the annual report of the Kelani Valley Plantations Ltd, a Hayleys subsidiary, of which he is also chairman, Yatawara said this uncertainty has become “disquietingly manifest in the recent withdrawal of major companies in the plantation sector.”

John Keells Holdings is one of the biggest groups to pull out of plantations.

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