The Ceylon Tea Exporters Association (CTEA) says that tea exports to Ukraine and Russia have come to a complete standstill due to the crisis.
Jayantha Karunaratne, the former president of the association and also the president of the Colombo Tea Traders’ Association, said that the export of tea to Russia and Ukraine had been halted due to a problem with the export of tea and the refusal of the relevant shipping companies to export tea.
Russia is the third largest buyer of Sri Lankan Tea. As a result of exporting 27 million kilograms of tea to Russia in 2021, 4 million kilograms of tea will be exported to Ukraine by 2021.
As a result, tea exporters to those countries are facing a severe financial crisis and have to find new buyers to export existing stocks of tea, said Jayantha Karunaratne. And also he says, the country has lost nearly $ 50 million in foreign exchange.
In 2021, Sri Lanka earned US $ 1.3 billion in foreign exchange from tea exports, an increase of 6.7 percent over the previous year.
However, in view of the situation that has arisen, the Tea Board is currently seeking solutions to those problems, said its chairman Jayampathi Molligoda.