The Sri Lanka Tea Board states that they have taken steps to pay USD 60 million by exporting tea from Sri Lanka to Iran to set off against arrears accrued due to the government’s inability to pay for the fuel obtained from Iran since 2011.

Our country had to pay 251 million USD to the Iranian government in the form of arrears for importing fuel to Sri Lanka since 2011.

According to the negotiations with the Iranian government to pay this amount, an agreement was made to settle the outstanding amount with the export of tea by our country to Iran. An agreement was also signed recently between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Government of Iran for this purpose.

However, Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) Chairman Niraj De Mel said that by today (15) an amount of 60 million dollars has already been paid by SL Government by exporting Tea to Iran.

Moreover, the chairman also emphasized that the amount of tea exported from our country to the Iranian government has increased by three times with the settlement of the arrears.

In the past few years, the covid-19 epidemic situation that has severely affected the country's economy, the sanctions imposed by European countries by 2011, the collapse of the tourism industry due to the Easter attack, and the collapse of the economy caused the government to face a difficulty in paying the arrears due to Iran due to the shortage of dollars.

In this backdrop, a program was started with the intervention of President Ranil Wickramasinghe to settle the amount with tea exported to Iran.

Accordingly, the Iranian government has taken steps to collect the outstanding loan amount from the tea exported. Also, steps have been taken to increase the amount of tea purchased by Iran.

Compared to the first five months of 2023, the amount of tea exported to Iran in the first five months of 2024 was 4.98 million kg. In the year 2023, that amount was 1.85 million kg. Therefore, the export of tea to Iran has increased three times this year.