Carbon factory, blessing for coconut triangle
H.M. Abeysinghe Kuliyapitiya Group Correspondent
A vertical kiln was installed in the Biece Link Carbon Factory at
Marandagolla, Giriulla which is a Sri Lankan-Chinese joint venture,
Commercial Councillor of Embassy of the People's Republic of China Zhu
Jim Fu opened the plant recently. At the ceremony held to mark the
commissioning of the activation of the plant Biece Link Carbons
(Private) Ltd. Chairman Patrick Jayawardhana said, "if not for the
Chinese this factory in the Coconut Triangle would not have been a
reality. This is a blessing for the coconut triangle. After the
inauguration of the factory we introduced collecting of coconut shells
from residence.
That provided indirect employment for several hundreds. In addition
the housewives could get an extra income by selling coconut shells which
were wasted in the past. We were able to give a value to the wasted
coconut shells," he said. Jayawardhana said, this is the first ever
coconut shell charcoal based carbon factory inaugurated in Sri Lanka,
prior to that several companies exported coconut shell charcoal only as
a raw material. The vertical kiln installed in this factory would
minimise the environmental damaged. This is a novel strategy to achieve
that objective.
"We export activated carbons to the value of Rs. 300 to 400 million
annually. Our foreign exchange earning is about 10 fold more than that
of exporting coconut shells charcoal," he said.
He thanked the Bank of Ceylon and People's Bank for the financial
assistance granted to the company.
The Human Resources Manager Indrathilaka Lekamge also spoke. |