An Analysis of Factors Affecting Sri Lanka’s Tea Exports

초록

Despite Ceylon tea's global recognition and its substantial contribution to the Sri Lankan economy, tea exports have experienced a sustained decline over recent decades. This study was therefore undertaken to identify the short-run and long-run effects of key determinants of tea exports—specifically, exchange rates, annual precipitation, and GDP growth rate—using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model with data spanning from 2000 to 2023. The findings indicate a positive correlation between GDP growth and tea exports, whereas exchange rate depreciation is found to have a negative impact. Furthermore, while precipitation exerts a positive influence on exports in the short term, this effect is not statistically significant in the long run. The model's reliability and validity were confirmed through various diagnostic tests, ensuring the robustness of the findings. These results underscore the critical importance of addressing macroeconomic, environmental, and economic challenges to bolster Sri Lanka's tea export sector.

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