Plantations Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe recently visited the floor of the Colombo Tea Auction and made inquiries as to the need for automating processors and its benefits, however, several experts in the industry said automation was not necessary while most of India’s tea auction centres have given up its automated system for the tried-and-tested manual one.
Chairman Colombo Tea Traders Association, (CTTA), Avi de Silva, and Chairman Brokers’ Association Anil Cooke, both told The Island Financial Review that automating the auction was not necessary as even without it Colombo was the most efficient in the world.
Three years ago Sri Lanka received funding to automat the Colombo Tea Auction. Brian Baptist, committee member on the Brokers Association at that time, visited India to assess the automated systems Indian auction centres had introduced back then. Upon his return, he spoke to The Island Financial Review and said automation was failing in India.
As for this question surfacing again over the past week or so, Baptist spoke to us last week, and said that India had reverted to the old manual system because failure at that time suggested that automation was not feasible.
Meanwhile, Avi de Silva said the CTTA had advised the minister that the present auction system prevailing in Colombo was the most transparent and efficient system, when compared to all other tea auction centres world-wide, and should not be altered at this point in time.
However, he said pre and post sales details could be automated for the convenience of buyers and sellers.
source - www.island.lk
No comments:
Post a Comment