Financial Times

Record tea volumes at Colombo auction
The record books of Sri Lanka's tea industry were rewritten last week when the Colombo tea auction offered for sale its largest volume ever of tea at a single auction.

A record volume of 8.81 million kg of tea went under the hammer, up from the previous best of 8.78 kg in May 30, 2002. Excellent buyer participation at the auction resulted in a strong market with prices rising among most categories.

Commenting on the record volume, Lalith Ramanayake, Managing Director of John Keels Limited said, "This was a result of a two-week collection of tea being auctioned. The tea production was on the rise till 2002 and we had seven consecutive record harvests. But in 2003 the production dipped slightly."

Despite the fact that floods and bad weather conditions ravaged many tea-growing areas in 2003, production figures reveal that all three elevations have bounced back quite satisfactorily with total production reaching 303.2 million kg.

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