All spiced up!

The Advisory Committee on Spice has thanked President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera for the proposed fertiliser subsidy given the Government.

Co-Chairman of the Spice Sector Advisory Committee Sarada de Silva thanked President Rajapaksa and Dr. Jayasundera for the extension of the proposed fertiliser subsidy for the spice sector by the Government. This would help drastic improvement in production of spices over next two years if the scheme is implemented successfully.

The Government annually spends Rs. 40 billion on the fertiliser subsidy. Earlier this month, it extended the subsidy to all crops. The subsidy was previously limited to a few selected crops, including rice.

Members of the Advisory Committee on Spice, who met Industry and Commerce Minister Rishard Bathiudeen on 11 May, expressed their thanks to the Minister, to be conveyed to the President.

According to the proposals, the price of cinnamon fertiliser is to be reduced by 54% in the due course from Rs. 2,950 per kilo to Rs. 1,350 per 50 kilo bag. This would help the small producers, who are the backbone of the spice industry.

“Minister, we in the industry thank the President and the Treasury Secretary for this initiative,” said de Silva.

The Minister was at the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Spice on Wednesday 11 May held at the Export Development Board premises, Colombo. During the meeting, Minister Bathiudeen said that Sri Lanka’s spice industry needed to reinvest its profits, ensuring industry growth. “We also need to thank the spice producers for the forex revenues they bring in,” he said.

Minister Bathiudeen expressed satisfaction and expressed his thanks regarding the increased forex brought in by the spice industry. “Our spice industry needs to reinvest its profits so that the industry can continue to grow,” he pointed out.

“The Divineguma programme of the Government could be used to increase our cinnamon production by enlisting the households to grow cinnamon and various other spices so that the families too benefit,” he added.

The committee members also informed Minister Bathiudeen about various promotional activities that the EDB and the spice industry have undertaken in past few years. The future promotional activities include the launching of the Ceylon Cinnamon Lion logo locally in the next two months by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which will thereafter be launched internationally at the Anuga Trade Fair in Germany and IFT in New Orleans, USA. This will be followed by registering the Ceylon Cinnamon Lion logo in the main consumer markets.

Sri Lanka can still sell an additional 10m000 tonnes of cinnamon easily if we can produce it, they revealed. “We need to double our capacity so that we will be able to meet this extra demand,” Minister Bathiudeen said.