KVPL posts Rs. 222 m. profit

Kelani Valley Plantations PLC (KVPL), the Hayleys Group plantation company, has begun reducing the impacts of a huge crop loss - the result of the estate strike of November-December 2006 - to improve on its first half performance.

According to figures released to the Colombo Stock Exchange this week, KVPL has increased its turnover for the nine months ending September 30, 2007 to Rs 1,888 million, an increase of five per cent over the same period last year, through better prices for rubber and tea.

The company ended the first quarter of the year with its tea crop in deficit by a third, but had at the end of the review period reduced this to a fifth through a partial catching up in the third quarter.

However, weather-related crop losses in the review period take this figure to 962,000 kg, KVPL Managing Director Kavi Seneviratne said.

The partial recovery of the crop lost to trade union action combined with a 25 per cent improvement in tea prices over the corresponding nine months resulted in turnover from tea growing by 2 per cent to Rs 1,176 million.

A 3.6 per cent increase in production and a 10.6 per cent improvement in the net sales averages for rubber boosted turnover from that produce by 11 per cent to Rs. 725 million.

As a result of these gains, KVPL's profit before tax of Rs. 222 million for the first nine months of the current year represented a decline of 16 per cent.