‘Poor packaging, a bane on export products’
Indunil HEWAGE
Sri Lanka has identified the poor packaging of export products as a
major limitation the country has faced in its drive for export growth.
The bulk of Sri Lanka's traditional exports are still at low value
added forms. The post harvest losses in agricultural produce too run
high. Inadequate packaging has been identified as a major cause for post
harvest losses in Sri Lanka.
The competitiveness of the industry had been affected due to the high
cost of raw material, the inadequate quality of raw material and
finished packages, low productivity, high levels of waste generation and
some environmental problems associated with packaging. “Packaging is a
vital output for all production related industries and since packaging
is a cross cutting issue it affects production endeavors.
The development of the packaging sector must be given priority. With
the fast development seen in local industries, the demand for innovative
packaging forms for value addition and branding and also awareness and
technical knowledge for the identification and development of
appropriate packaging material is on the increase,” Sri Lanka Export
Development Board said.
In order to develop industries in a country, the development of the
packaging sector must be given priority.
All packaging development strategies do converge on the efforts of
making available innovative and reliable packaging material at an
affordable cost to the users of packaging material, both on products
made for internal as well as export market.
Private sector packaging industry has also been in need of some
technical inputs in order to upgrade the packaging quality.
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