Plantations Committee close to calling EOI for state plantations
The Plantations Committee under the Public Enterprise Development Ministry is to put forward a paper for restructuring state plantations to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) next week. Officials said that they have identified 20,000 hectares (ha) of productive agricultural lands including forests and timber land and in one month’s time aim to call for proposals for all the agricultural plantations for Public Private Partnerships and will issue Expressions of Interest (EOI) initially.
“After we get this sanctioned by CCEM, we aim to go full-on and restructure the plantations,” an official told the Business Times. So far the ministry has received some 80 unsolicited proposals, but the official said that they will also be called to apply when the EOI are called. Five plantation companies – Elkaduwa, Janatha Estate Development Board (JEDB), Sri Lanka Estate Plantations Corporation (SLSPC), Chilaw Plantations Ltd and Kurunegala Plantations Ltd come under the ministry.