Forestry emerges as preferred choice of long term investment

Saturday, 29 April 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Many investors are actively reducing their exposure to equities, and are seeking alternative assets to boost returns without dramatically altering their overall risk profile. Hence, commercial forestry is rapidly becoming a preferred choice of sustainable investment. Sadaharitha Plantations Ltd., Sri Lanka’s leader in this eco-friendly venture of sustainable commercial forestry, has increased the projected return on investment of Agarwood projects, with effect from 1 April based on the international market trends for the harvested Agarwood.

Sadaharitha offered a variety of crops as investments in forestry, ranging from mahogany, sandalwood, teak and aquilaria (agarwood) as the new addition to the portfolio since 2014. The company holds over 2,000 acres of sustainable forestry lands with over 26,000 customers. The company maintains 32 branch offices across the country.

Agarwood is reputed to be one of the most expensive woods in the world. There are many names for the resinous, fragrant heartwood produced primarily by trees in the genus Aquilaria. Most commonly, the resin is known as agarwood, aloeswood, eaglewood, gaharu, agalocha or oudh (In Arabic). Agarwood is exported in various forms such as oil, wood chips, powder and as finished products, such as perfumes, carvings, incense and medicine. Agarwood undoubtedly is a billion dollar industry, in which the ever increasing price is attributed to the constantly growing demand in larger markets such as Middle-East, China, USA and Europe. Agarwood oil prices ranges from $ 30,000 to 50,000 and chipped Agarwood sold at around $ 10,000, with a continuous growth in demand, making investors earn more on their investment.

Sadaharitha Plantations will celebrate the company’s 15th year of operation in August this year and is now gearing itself to embark on expanding the export potential of forestry further by introducing a new range of value added productions focusing on Agarwood.