The Hon. K.V. Samantha Viddyarathna - Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure
The Minister rejected media reports claiming that hundreds of tea factories had closed under the NPP Government, stating that the remarks had been misreported and later corrected by officials. He said 213 factories had closed since 1986, including six in 2025, and attributed closures to longstanding issues such as management deficiencies and inadequate leaf supply rather than recent government action.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 This was based on a partial remark by the Chairman of the Tea Small Holdings Development Authority which some media reported as “hundreds of factories closed under the NPP Government.” That is entirely false and was later corrected by the Chairman and our officials, though not given equal prominence.
¶ 02 As of now, 213 factories have closed since 1986. By year: 13 in 2018; 17 in 2019; 13 in 2020; 14 in 2022; 19 in 2023; and six so far in 2025. These closures are not due to developments of the last two or three months. Owners have struggled for long and close only at the last resort, often due to management deficiencies and inadequate leaf supply, among other longstanding systemic issues.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Wednesday, 18 June 2025 ·No. 1751280704002343 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. K.V. Samantha Viddyarathna - Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 18 June 2025. No. 1751280704002343. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/6784