Wage hike the start to transforming plantations, says President
In transforming the plantations sector to a more thriving agro business space, President Ranil Wickremesinghe insisted that worker wages also need to increase.
The President was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Colombo International Tea Convention held at the Cinnamon Grand in Colombo on Thursday organised by the Colombo Tea Traders Association together with the Sri Lanka Tea Board.
He called the plantation companies to start reforming the sector from the inside by taking into consideration the need for remunerations.
The President asserted that those seeking these remunerations are those at the worst end of bankruptcy in the economy.
He said the government will be extracting all line rooms and re-gazetting them as villages pointing out that such living conditions are a thing of the past.
The multi dimensional poverty indications are very high on the plantations, he noted as he laid out the plans for the reforming of the estate sector that needs to adopt smart agricultural practices and forge ahead as agro business ventures and not continue to sit in the past.
President Wickremesinghe
also spoke of the debt incurred by the small enterprises that needs
to be considered.
Access to the Russian market can be worked on once sanctions have been lifted but for this he insisted Sri Lanka needs to await the result of the US Presidential election.
He left it to the tea fraternity to decide on their way forward by insisting whether Australians will drink tea the way we do; the millenials and Gen Z’s are the industry’s future; and will Europe and the US drink iced tea.
The President said that with Sri Lanka establishing the climate change legislation it will enable the country to hit net zero even before the target date.
The Tea Research Institute should be looking into the future by also restructuring these institutions and calling for similar transformations among the smallholders.
These concerns could be addressed and resolved by those within the industry itself, he said.
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