The Spice Council gets UNIDO and WTO/STDF support to upgrade Cinnamon sector

The Spice Council (TSC),  a Private & Public partnership (PPP) being the apex body of the spice industry in Sri Lanka will be supported by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for a project to build up the capacities of the cinnamon sector in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka producers 15,000 metric tonnes (mts) of cinnamon annually, of which 13000 mts are exported. Cinnamon is grown on 30,000 hectares of land mainly in the south and may be harvested biannually, however due to the shortage of the cinnamon processors only 25-30% of the plantations are harvested biannually and 60-65% once yearly, while 10% of the plantations are not harvested or have been abandoned.  Cinnamon industry could contribute to the national economy of the country if measures are taken to overcome the dearth in skillful cinnamon processors. This workforce scarcity is critically affecting the competitiveness of the industry.

However, there are about 36,000 deficits of skillful cinnamon peelers for the industry and annually this deficit will increase by 3%.

This workforce scarcity is critically affecting the competitiveness of the industry; as a result of this situation Sri Lanka is losing 5% of its global trade for cinnamon.

Another consequence of this situation is the countries’ cinnamon industry is handicapped in providing produce meeting sanitary and phyto – sanitary standards of some high end markets which would have brought significant export turnover to the countries’ economy.

In this context, UNIDO and WTO/STDF have come forward to support The Spice Council of Sri Lanka to develop capacities of the cinnamon processors in terms of skills and complying with international best practices to meet the sanitary and phyto – sanitary standards.The launching of the Pure Ceylon Cinnamon brand by the President is a very significant land mark not only as an industry but Sri Lanka as a nation. This will act as an ambassador to represent our country in global trade as well as among the global households.

Therefore performing according to this brand excellence is an imperative and a must.  The Sri Lankan government, along with the cinnamon industry identifies the lack of properly trained cinnamon peelers and consequent substandard supplies will become a major bottleneck for effectively implementing this brand marketing.

Therefore, Sri Lankan government is fully endorsing the timely requirement of upgrading the training delivery mechanism to generate skillful workforce to meet this challenge.   

The Spice Council along with EDB had planned for two Cinnamon Brand promotion programmes in USA and Germany during year 2011. The Brand promotion in USA has already completed during the International Food Technology Fair held in New Orleans, USA last month. Some of your members have participated at this event.

The next Brand promotion will be held in Germany in October during ANUGA Trade Fair, one of the biggest food fairs in the world. The EDB is also in the process of obtaining geographical indication for Ceylon Cinnamon.

Strengthening the sector to thrive towards strong brand marketing for Ceylon Cinnamon will pave the way for the industry to achieve target to reach US$ 1 billion mark by 2020.