Master plan to up rubber production by 60%

The Agriculture and Plantation Industries Ministry has taken steps to implement a rubber cultivation master plan in the next few years with the aim of increasing the annual natural rubber production in Sri Lanka by 60 percent.

For this reason, Agriculture and Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said that it is planned to start rubber cultivation on 100,000 acres in areas like Monaragala, Ampara and Badulla, belonging to the Dry Zone.

The Minister said this at a discussion with the manufacturers who are involved in the production of Technically Specified Rubber (TSR), on Wednesday (31). Currently, TSR has 10 rubber related manufacturing plants in the country. For the TSR rubber they use for their products, the tree laces that are discarded during the cutting of latex are used.

But the industrialists said that they are currently utilising about 30 percent of their production capacity and the lack of tree laces has affected it.

The Minister who expressed his opinion in this discussion said that a master plan has been prepared for the expansion of 100,000 acres of rubber cultivation in three districts including Monaragala and instructed the Rubber Development Department to start its implementation.

He instructed the Rubber Research Institute to speed up the research to identify new clones for the production of rubber varieties that can produce more latex.

The Minister said that the Cabinet had decided to temporarily allow the import of cup lumps instead of tree laces as there are not enough tree laces for the factories making TSR rubber related products.

Currently, there is a demand of 60,240 metric tons for TSR in our country, but only 17,225 metric tons are produced in this country. For this reason, the Minister emphasised that the import of TSR has been temporarily approved while protecting the domestic tree laces industry.

The Minister said that henceforth it was decided not to approve the cultivation of rubber on the lands in the Kalutara district.

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