State bank financial muscle for SSP project

Anjana Samarasinghe

PHOSPHATE: The state banks have agreed to provide funds to kickstart the Single Super Phosphate SSP project.

Director of the Ministry of Industrial Development M.C.L Rodrigo told Daily News that Bank of Ceylon and the People's Bank have initially agreed to provide commercial loans for the project.

The Ministry expects to go for a long term commercial loan for the project. The total cost of the project will be nearly Rs 800 million and the new venture will create 300 new job opportunities.

SSP project will be a subsidiary of Lanka Phosphate Ltd (LPL). Under this project the production capacity of the LPL will also be developed. The final feasibility report has shown that this project will be a profitable venture.

SSP could be used for the short-term crops such as vegetables. But Sri Lanka imports Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) spending Rs 900 million per year for short-term crops.

This project will enable Sri Lanka to save large amount of foreign exchange through the fertiliser import bill, he said.

Talking about other state owned industries Rodrigo said that they expect to start the production of the Kahatagaha Graphite mine next January. Now we are in the process of assuring the safety of the mine before commencing production to assure the safety of the workers, he said.

At present there are nearly 45 workers attached to the Kahatagaha Graphite Lanka Ltd (KGLL).

The ministry has also made arrangements to sell the graphite which has already been processed by KGLL to the international market.

The Ministry expects to go for value addition without exporting graphite as raw material to create more job opportunities.

The Embilipitya Paper company will too commence its operations soon. At present we are inspecting the power supply of the plant to commence production, he said.