Taking advantage of nature to produce salt as long as the sun, and the sea lives on, a Sri Lankan company is to embark for the first time on an ambitious project to export pure salt to markets such as Japan.
Dr. Ravi Liyanage |
Raigam Wayamba Saltern (Ltd), a fully owned subsidiary of the Kingdom of Raigam plans to set up three salt bases in the Southern, Eastern and Wayamba provinces with a capacity of 2,444 acres aimed at capturing a 40% market share and finding new emerging overseas markets such as Japan.
The company will soon introduce a pure vacuum dried technology to manufacture pure salt to cater to the needs of overseas markets including Japan. This was disclosed by the chairman of the company Dr. Ravi Liyanage at a press conference held in Palavi, Puttalam, following a tour by a group of Colombo-based journalists to the Wayamba Saltern on Monday.
The company is currently planning to send a shipment of 100% pure salt to Japan, establishing another milestone as the first salt exporter in the country. Pure salt can be used for the manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka such as biscuits and other products which at present are imported from other countries, he said. Raigam Wayamba Saltern (Ltd) will import a vacuum salt plant from India in order to increase the capacity of the existing state of the art salt refinery and to upgrade the same at cost of Rs.15 million Dr. Liyanage added. A chemical manufacturing plant will also be set up with foreign assistance using the crystal salt as the main output.
The development of a new saltern on a state owned land in Vanathavilluwa, Puttalam with an extent of around 325 acres is now underway. The company has obtained the land from the government and the cost of the project is in the region of Rs.90 million Dr Liyanage said that the final phase of the salterns which are being developed on 110 acres of lands owned by the company is to be implemented at a cost of Rs.15 million. He noted that the company intends to raise funds for these projects through a public share issue aimed at generating Rs 200 million by selling a share at Rs 2.50 at a total worth of Rs 800 million by the first quarter of this year.
It is expected to strengthen the local industry of salt while producing hygienically packed salt made to international standards, he said. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already approved it and submitted the application to CSE which is processing it at present.
Joint Managing Director Ganaka Amarasinghe said that the Wayamba Saltern with more than 300 acres, is the largest and the productive among salterns in Sri Lanka. It has the capacity to produce 60,000 kgs of table salt per a day. There are around 200 workers in the factory which provides a daily harvest of 1500 metric tons a day. The turnover of the company for 2008/09 was Rs 382 million and the profit was Rs 172 million compared with the turnover of Rs. 157 million and profit of Rs. 12 million the previous year,” he said.
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