10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Sunil Handunnetti - Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development

Jathika Jana balawegaya· Matara· 9 January 2025 ·Debate: Special Commodity Levy Act: Orders and Related Motions

Agriculture
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The Minister said longstanding issues in the coconut sector, including tree felling and estate conversion, cannot be resolved immediately because new trees take time to mature. He stated that the Government would import copra and provide it to local mills for domestic processing as an interim measure.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Exactly. These are longstanding issues. We must change them. Many coconut trees have been cut; estates converted. You cannot regrow trees overnight. So we will import some copra and supply to our mills for domestic processing.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Thursday, 9 January 2025 ·No. 1738229262040729 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
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Permalink
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Cite as: The Hon. Sunil Handunnetti - Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 9 January 2025. No. 1738229262040729. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/23709