Hon. K.V. Samantha Viddyarathna - Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure
The Minister said the Government, in collaboration with the Ministry of Industries, is supporting SMEs and palmyrah producers through schemes and credit programmes. He invited local and overseas Sri Lankan investors to invest in palmyrah value addition, noting that Sri Lanka has about 11.1 million dispersed palmyrah trees and that discussions are under way to legally allocate clustered access for investment. He said the Government is ready to facilitate such partnerships.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, in collaboration with the Ministry of Industries, schemes and credit programmes are in place for SMEs to enter this sector; we are already extending support to palmyrah producers. I also invite investors, including overseas Sri Lankans, to invest in palmyrah. Sri Lanka has about 11.1 million palmyrah trees, dispersed across homesteads, reservations and forests—not in contiguous estates like tea, coconut or rubber. We are discussing structured access so that if an investor comes forward, clusters of trees in a given area can be legally allocated for value addition. We are ready to provide necessary facilitation and invite investors to partner with Government in this endeavour.
¶ 02 Restaurants/Hotels Providing Facilities for Passengers of Long-Distance Buses: Registration
¶ 03 Question No. 7 - 1353/2025, Hon. (Prof.) Sena Nanayakkara.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Friday, 24 October 2025 ·No. 22644 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: Hon. K.V. Samantha Viddyarathna - Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 24 October 2025. No. 22644. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/28744