Lankan economy can bounce back with China’s support – Dr. Kohona
Sri Lanka will be able to overcome the current difficulties, ease the debt burden and realize sustainable development with continuous support from China.
This was opined by Sri Lankan Ambassador to China, Dr. Palitha Kohona addressing the Maritime Silk Road International Tea Culture Forum 2022, in China. “Our economy was rising quickly, with a growing and comfortable middle class, until the economic crisis interrupted our progress.”
He said that the Sri Lankan tea industry is critical to the prosperity of the country and observed that there is an increasing popularity of Sri Lankan tea in China, especially from Fujian state area.
Like Sri Lanka, Fujian also produced black tea but since the introduction of the tea plant to Sri Lanka 160 years ago it has evolved acclimatizing to local conditions producing a delicious brew loved the world over. “However they still purchases Sri Lankan tea and in 2021, Fujian imported 3.66 million Kgs of tea from Sri Lanka and this number is expected to grow.”
Like in Sri Lanka, the majority of the tea is produced in small holdings in Fujian. The rural upliftment and industry modernisation programs, including modern research and the employment of science, use of better techniques, attractive packaging and sophisticated awareness enhancement by government authorities have resulted in dynamically transforming the industry and also, in the process, eliminating poverty in the rural Fujian tea region.
Living standards in tea producing areas too have improved dramatically. There were many valuable lessons to be learned from Fujian. “Getting rid of poverty is a remarkable and unique achievement China has done under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. No other country has eliminated extreme poverty,” Kohona said, noting that he intended to learn from China’s development path of using the tea industry to drive farmers out of poverty. “In Sri Lanka, tea is grown in rural, especially mountainous areas. Women are the key component of the workforce there. We also would like to eliminate rural poverty and, to do that, improving the tea industry would be key. We will have to improve the tea industry to help those rural families achieve moderate prosperity as China has done,” he said.
Ambassador Dr. Palitha Kohona called on Sri Lanka tea exporting companies for closer collaboration between the tea industries of Fujian and Sri Lanka and the embassy was ready to felicitate this.