Cheaper gas

Consumers will breathe a sigh of relief after the Government announced yesterday that it would enter the gas market by December, with an initial stock of 50 Mt. According to initial predictions, a 12.5 Kg cylinder will be at least Rs.500 cheaper. This will indeed be a relief to all LP Gas consumers islandwide.

The announcement also almost coincided with a pledge by Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardana to bring down LP gas prices in November, in line with the price formula approved by the Courts. Consumers who now have to bear the most recent price increase of Shell and Laufgs varieties of LP Gas will expect a substantial price reduction in November.

One must laud the role of the Consumer Affairs Authority in this regard, as it has always tried to take the side of the consumers. According to Minister Gunawardana, the gas companies had requested bigger price increases but these were not granted. The entry of the Government to this sector will lead to more competition and hopefully, gas at more reasonable prices from all three players.

Gas has become a popular cooking fuel due to the easy availability of gas cookers at reasonable prices, a countrywide distribution network for gas cylinders, convenience and a variety of other factors.

It goes without saying that when gas cookers first became popular, filled gas cylinders, even with the first deposit, were very cheap. Now we face the paradoxical situation where a single burner gas cooker costs almost the same as a full gas cylinder.

It is thus high time that the authorities popularise alternative methods of cooking using easily available local raw materials. We recently saw a pioneering effort in this direction - a stove using coconut shells which is very affordable, easy to maintain and easy on the purse to use everyday.

Since most homes use coconut anyway, there is almost no additional expenditure apart from the cost of the stove itself. It is also eco-friendly. This product an similar products should be marketed with more vigour so that more consumers will be tempted to by them without opting for the increasingly expensive LP Gas. That will also save foreign exchange now spent on gas imports.

The cup that cheers

Sri Lanka and India are among the leading tea producing in the world, though Kenya is catching up. The two neighbours have always seen each other as competitors in terms of tea trade. This situation is changing for the better as they have both realised that cooperation is the way forward.

The Tea Board of India and Tea Board of Sri Lanka have signed a mutual recognition agreement for tea coming into each of the countries. It is a comprehensive economic partnership agreement which would enable the free flow of tea into each country without having to go through the process of testing.

This is a move in the right direction as it would bolster the tea trade between the two nations. India is essentially a CTC market while Sri Lanka is an orthodox tea market.

At the moment the Indian side allows a duty free quota of 7.5 million upto 15 million kg of imports from Sri Lanka though the same is not applicable for Indian imports into Sri Lanka. For re-exports its zero duty in both countries. With the new agreement in effect, these levels are bound to grow.

In another positive development, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Tea Research Association of India and the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka will also be signed. Upto now, the two research institutions have worked in isolation, without seeking each other’s inputs. But this is simply not the way to counter the threat from coffee and other beverages.

In fact, there was a proposal to form a ‘tea cartel’ on the lines of OPEC to present a broad alliance in world trade fora. India and Sri Lanka have taken a preliminary step in this direction and other countries may follow suit.

Such an arrangement will benefit all tea producing countries and tea consumers the world over. Tea will reign supreme as the number one beverage, with all tea producing countries working towards one goal.