COLOMBO, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Plantation Ministry on Monday said it is aiming to revive its regular tea auctions in a bid to reduce the impact on the country's tea exports due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, local media reported.
Plantations Minister Ramesh Pathirana told the media that the tea industry has suffered a setback during the past few weeks with some of the workers affected seriously without wages.
Sri Lanka has remained under a countrywide curfew since March 20.
Pathirana said that plans, however, were underway to get the auction revived by this week so that tea exporters could obtain their tea stocks to export into the global market.
Sri Lanka's tea export industry is one of the country's leading foreign exchange earners with the country earning over 1 billion U.S. dollars from its exports last year.
According to statistics from the Sri Lanka Tea Board, the country last year exported a record 11.8 million kg of tea to China as China is among the top 10 export destinations for Sri Lankan tea.
