COLOMBO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka is seeking to increase value added-exports of graphene aiming to push graphene exports up to 5 percent of its overall exports this year, local media reported Monday.
CEO of public-private partnership company Ceylon Graphene Technologies (CGT) Manju Gunawardana said that the company hopes to move from raw material exports to production of value-added with a plant in capital Colombo that is set to be commissioned by May.
"This will help us towards intensifying exports, manufacture products like car batteries, computer chips and solar power products for exports," Gunawardana was quoted as saying by state-owned Daily News.
"As graphene is known as the world's latest breakthrough material, the current export revenue could be doubled," Gunawardana said.
CGT, a joint venture between finance institution LOLC Holdings and Sri Lankan Institute of Nanotechnology, was formed in 2018 and currently exports graphene to markets in Japan, the Unites States and India.
Graphene is a carbon allotrope with unique properties which makes it useful in a broad range of industrial applications.
Sri Lanka is the only country in the world that produces commercial quantities of vein graphite that is 98 percent carbon pure.
Sri Lanka produces 300 tons of graphite every month, mainly from three mines in the towns of Bogala, Kahatagaha and Ragedara.
Mining and quarrying activity made up around 2.7 percent of Sri Lanka's GDP in 2017, a share which the government hopes to increase in the coming years.
