Sri Lanka tea production is likely to fall by around 50 percent in September year-on-year, due to a nation-wide plantation labour strike, the island nation's tea board said on Wednesday. Workers in 22 regional plantation companies, which account for 40 percent of country's tea production, had staged a 12-day strike from September 1, demanding higher wages.
"If we take a rough estimate, at least about 50 of the probable production would have lost," Lalith Hettiarachchi, the chairman of Sri Lanka Tea Board told Reuters. The total output in January-July has fallen 21.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest data available with the Tea Board.
Tea brokers expect the fall in output would be less than 50 percent, but said last three weekly tea auctions had less than required volumes due to the strike. Regional plantation companies on Saturday agreed to raise daily labour wage by around 40 percent to 405 rupees ($3.53).
Comments
Comments are closed.