By Uditha Jayasinghe
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s tea producers on Monday condemned a authorities order to extend wages by 70%, saying it could make their tea globally uncompetitive and cut back greenback earnings important for the island nation to emerge from a monetary disaster.
The $1.3 billion business produces standard Ceylon Tea and employs about 615,000 employees. The island yearly exports about 95% of the 250 million kilos of tea it produces.
The federal government has ordered employee salaries be elevated to 1,700 rupees ($5.66) per day from 1,000 rupees, which the business says will enhance tea manufacturing prices by 45%.
The fallout from Sri Lanka’s protracted monetary disaster, attributable to a extreme shortfall of international alternate in 2022, has additionally hit the tea business, quadrupling fertiliser, gasoline and energy prices, the Planters’ Affiliation of Ceylon (PAoC) stated.
“This is unsustainable and unfair. This decision was made without proper consultation and will result in the quality of Sri Lanka’s tea declining,” PAoC spokesperson Roshan Rajadurai instructed reporters.
“Sri Lanka’s key rivals, India and Kenya, have lower prices and higher productivity.”
The business should begin paying the wage enhance from subsequent month, Sri Lanka’s Labour Ministry stated on Sunday, warning that plantation firms refusing to conform might be taken over by the federal government.
Implementing the wage hike will value plantation firms an extra 35 billion rupees, the affiliation stated.
Plantation firms and employee unions have been negotiating for months to extend salaries, which unions contend is important as Sri Lanka’s monetary disaster plunged round 1 / 4 of the inhabitants into poverty in 2023.
($1 = 300.4000 Sri Lankan rupees)
