{"id":111069,"date":"2021-01-27T16:43:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T23:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111069"},"modified":"2021-01-27T16:43:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T23:43:01","slug":"rubber-the-tree-of-economic-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/27\/rubber-the-tree-of-economic-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubber, the Tree of economic development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rohan Abeygunawardena ACMA, CGMA.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

When I was a kid while helping with homework, my mother told\n\u2018\u2019look at this eraser, it is made in England, but do you know this is made out\nof rubber from our country?\u2019\u2019 That was in early sixties. Then in mid-sixties my\nfather showed me a newspaper heading \u2018\u2019Soviet Union to build a Tyre factory in\nKelaniya.\u2019\u2019 Since I was fascinated by motorcars, although our family couldn\u2019t\nafford one, I thought \u2018\u2019how nice if I get an opportunity to work in that\nfactory.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got that opportunity. In March 1982 I was appointed as the\nCost Accountant at Sri Lanka Tyre Corporation (SLT). As a cost accountant my\nwork cannot be limited to a routing deskwork. I had to interact with all the\ntechnical personnel such as technologists, engineering, marketing etc. I had to\nget their inputs to prepare the Annual Budget, monthly progress reports and\ncosting of products and processes that were under my purview. These officers\nwere very knowledgeable and competent and majority of them were trained in\nRussia and German Democratic Republic (GDR) as East Germany was then called. I\nlearnt from them the tyre manufacturing process from A to Z. I also learnt\nabout Rubber plantation and Industry in Sri Lanka from which the main raw\nmaterial, sheet rubber was procured.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to statistics published by Rubber Research\nInstitute (RRI) about 133,000 MT of rubber were produced in Sri Lanka in 1980. If\nmy memory serves me right, only about 15% or 19,000 MT of rubber was locally\nused and the balance was exported in raw form. Out of the local use about 8%\nwas consumed by SLT to manufacture pneumatic tyres and tubes. Other\nmanufacturers used the balance 7% in tyre re-treading, toys, mattresses, floor\ntiles, carpets etc. During the period I was at SLT, the technical experts were\nexperimenting to produce Radial Tyres in collaboration with BFGoodrich of\nUSA. <\/strong>Radial tyres compared to cross ply tyres have a longer tread life,\nbetter steering characteristics, and less rolling resistance, which improves\nfuel economy. Bearcat of Ireland, <\/strong>the largest solid tyre manufacturer of\nthe world at the time provided solid tyre manufacturing technology to SLT to\nproduce and export their brand.These are typical examples of a Sri\nLankan public sector institution reaping the benefits of the open economy\nintroduced in 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SLT, the first tyre factory in Sri Lanka was privatised in\nearly nineties and it is now called Ceat Kelani International Tyres Pvt Ltd. It\nconsist 2 plants, Ceat Kelani International Tyres and Associated Ceat Kelani\nRadials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During last 40 years rubber based industries have grown<\/a> by leaps<\/a> and bounds<\/a>\nin Sri Lanka. Mainly a private sector driven industry in the country it consist\nof a few large scale manufacturers as well as many small and medium scale\nmanufactures. Sri Lanka has become one of the largest producers of solid tyres\nand latex gloves in the world.  In addition to that Sri Lanka\nalso produce pneumatic tyres<\/a>, rubber flooring, mats, automobile\ncomponents, sealing rings, rubber bands, straps, hoses and hot water bottles\nfor the export market. The rubber based manufacturing industry is the most\nimportant value added industry in the country with over 50% value addition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 14January 2021 the phase 1 of the largest\ntyre factory in South Asia Ferentino Tyre Corporation (Pvt) Limited, was\nopened by the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Horana. It is reported that,\nUS$ 250 million state-of-the-art European technology modern tyre factory\nsituated in a 50 acre property is expected to export 80% of its production of\ncross ply and radial tyres and earn much needed foreign exchange for the\ncountry. The second phase of the project will be commissioned in March 22. The project\nwill create 3,000 direct employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Chinese firm Shandong Haohua Tire Co. Limited has decided\nto establish a manufacturing facility within the premises of Hambantota\ninternational harbour due to the high quality natural rubber available in the\ncountry and the strategic location to ship efficiently to the South Asia,\nMiddle East and Africa. The investment is US 300 million. The factory that will\nbe in a 121 acre space in the Hambantota Port industrial zone is expected to\nemploy 2,000 workers and export 9 million tyres in the first phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubber is the most important agro based industrial raw\nmaterial produced in Sri Lanka. The country facing near starvation in early\nfifties was rescued by \u2018\u2019Rubber Rice Pact\u2019\u2019 signed between Sri Lanka and China\nunder which former received rice at lower than world market price while rubber\nwas sold to latter at a slightly higher price than the world market. The pact\nwas wound up in late seventies as it was no longer needed when Sri Lanka\nachieved near self-sufficiency in rice when accelerated Mahavali Programme was\nimplemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our scientist should be commended for their research work\nutilising every part of rubber tree for producing value added products. The seeds\nare converted to oil to be used as an accelerator in vulcanisation process, seed shell\n(RSS) uses as precursor for preparing activated carbon, rubber wood chemically\ntreated and furniture is made and remnants are collected and used to make\nplywood, tree leaves are a good fertilizer for the rubber plant itself. Today\nrubber tree could be considered as a \u2018\u2019Tree of economic development\u2019\u2019 like the\ncoconut tree that was called \u2018\u2019Tree of Life\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demand for rubber will increase in the country when\nabove mentioned tyre factories achieve full production capacity. This 140 year\nrubber plantation industry is consist of large plantations managed\nby well established companies as well as many small holders. Tragedy is\nproduction has dropped from 133 MT in 1980 to 83 MT by 2018. The local demand\nfrom manufactures of rubber based products at present is about 70 MT and some\nof them are compelled to import natural rubber. Though local use of natural\nrubber has increased compared to early eighties still there is room for\nimprovement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While land area under rubber plantation has come down from\n171,126 Hectares in 1982 to 125,645 Hectares by 2010 (source RRI) contributed\nto drop in production, main reason is productivity. Our yield in 2018 was only\n774 kg per Hectare whereas Cambodia had a yield of 1,090 kg per Hectare.\nAccording to an article published in Daily News of 7 December 2019 by Dr. L.M.\nTillekeratne, former Executive Director of RRI titled \u2018\u2019Impact of declining\nRubber production to the economy,\u2019\u2019 <\/strong>Cambodians followed the recommendations\nof Sri Lankans. He further said that the RRISL scientists helped improving\nrubber plantations in Myanmar and Cambodia to overtake total rubber production\nin Sri Lanka in less than a decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a good time for all stakeholders to get together and\nreview Sri Lanka’s Rubber Industry<\/strong> Master Plan 2017-2026<\/strong> and find solutions faced by Rubber\nPlantations to achieve what RRI scientists achieved elsewhere. Remember \u2018\u2019Sri Lankans got the talent.\u2019\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rohan Abeygunawardena ACMA, CGMA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rohan Abeygunawardena ACMA, CGMA. When I was a kid while helping with homework, my mother told \u2018\u2019look at this eraser, it is made in England, but do you know this is made out of rubber from our country?\u2019\u2019 That was in early sixties. Then in mid-sixties my father showed me a newspaper heading \u2018\u2019Soviet Union […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}