COLOMBO: Crisis-struck Sri Lanka’s vital tea exports have dropped to their lowest level in 23 years, official figures showed Wednesday, hit by a fertiliser ban and the war in Ukraine.
Tea is the island nation’s biggest export commodity, bringing in about $1.3 billion annually before the current economic downturn, the worst since independence in 1948.
But a bungled ban on fertiliser imports last year — introduced in a doomed effort to save foreign currency and avoid a debt default — hit growers hard, with production falling 18% on-year for the period from November 2021 to February 2022.
Customs data showed that first-quarter exports in 2022 correspondingly plunged to 63.7 million…
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