Carbon factory, blessing for coconut triangle
Date: Monday, November 16, 2009 @ 08:21:34 LKT
Topic: Development News
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.
Courtesy: DailyNews
|
|