The Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) and Janathakshan GTE Ltd have entered a partnership under the United Nations Development Programme’s GEF-07 Project to promote biodiversity-friendly and climate-resilient agriculture across six wet-climatic-zone districts: Kalutara, Galle, Matara, Ratnapura, Kegalle and Nuwara Eliya.
The project — formally titled “Partnerships and Innovative Financing to Mainstream Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Management in the Wet Climatic Zone of Sri Lanka” — will link producer groups with registered exporters, support participation in trade fairs and export promotion programmes, and guide compliance with export standards, the EDB said.
The collaboration covers six product sectors: organic and artisanal tea, kithul products, pepper and pepper oil, arecanut and kolapath eco-friendly tableware, cardamom, and jackfruit. Collaborative activities will include value addition, quality improvement, hygienic production practices, and the provision of market intelligence to facilitate access to priority export destinations including Japan, the European Union and the United States.
The agreement will also pursue Geographical Indication (GI) certification for products such as kithul and pepper, and establish cluster-level certification frameworks for producer societies.
The EDB said the partnership is expected to strengthen export-oriented agroforestry and tea value chains, enhance export readiness among smallholder producers, and promote biodiversity-friendly production systems.
The push lands alongside the Board of Investment’s eight-sector feasibility review and the SME Nexus national strategic framework launched by Industry Minister Handunneththi. Bio-friendly export development is one strand of the National Export Development Plan 2026–2030 approved by Cabinet and benchmarked by ADB analysis on its expected revenue impact.
