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Coconut Fiber

Henry Jayaweera

I was bemused and saddened to read a letter in your journal by a Fillipino national encouraging the government to develop the coconut industry in Sri Lanka so that coconut fiber exports to China can be increased.

That the coconut industry should be develped is certainly true for many reasons. But the export of fiber to China reminded me that tis is what we have been doing for centuries-exporting raw materials to other countries for a pittance, while other countries make huge profits converting those raw materials into finshed prodcts.

I do not claim to be an economist, but with the smidgen of economics lodged in my brain from the economics courses I took for my bachelor's degree many years ago, I cannot help wondering why we cannot try to go a bit technological and produce some finished products ourselves.

What happened to the grand technological goals we had made for ourselves in the last two decades or so?

Are we still no different than we were under the Brits, who took our tea abroad and and turned it into a 'finished product' getting a lion's share of the profits from the industry?

Shouldn't the Ministry of Industry, the CRI and other industrially oriented agencies and in,dividuls we certainly have no dearth of, find methods of making the best of our resources?

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