Rishad, top Washington scientist start Lanka’s first Food Compliance

news.lk - 19/06/2013

For the first time in Sri Lanka’s exports history, on June 11, a renowned global food scientist began  to extensively train Lankan food exporters on the much needed international regulatory compliance rules.

Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka said that processed food has grown to become a key component of Sri Lanka’s overall annual food exports. In 2012, 26% of total food and beverages exports were processed foods, at $ 73.4 Mn. Sri Lanka's overall processed food exports which stood at $ 67.1 Mn in 2010 rose to a strong $ 95 Mn in 2011 added the Minister.

Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the launching ceremony of fist International Food Safety and Compliance Training session by globally renowned Food Scientist Dr. Barbara Rasco, Associate Professor of the Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition of the Washington State University for Sri Lanka’s food exporters at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The pioneering session was organised by the Sri Lanka Food Processor’s Association with the support of Minister Bathiudeen’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce in partnership with the Spice Council and VEGA-FEG. The sessions commenced on 11 June will continue up to 21 June.

Dr. Rasco, one of the few professionals in the world simultaneously practicing Food Law and Food Science as a Food Scientist, arrived in the island on Saturday (08 ).

She published the world’s first  book (with Dr Bledsoe) on intentional food contamination, considered as a criminal practice in which companies were shown how to deal with food terrorism. She has worked with hundreds of firms - including Starbucks, Coca Cola, Kraft US, Dole, Cargill Inc and American Sea Foods.

“I am happy to help Sri Lanka’s food industry to secure its exports competitiveness. I am also impressed with the level of sophistication of Sri Lanka’s food industry. You are very proactive” said Dr Rasco, who admitted her strong liking for Sri Lankan Jaggery and hot curries, and stressed: “despite the difficulty to get in to new export markets and despite being expensive, your food operators and exporters are doing the right thing by following regulatory compliance.”   She further said that Americans are beginning to look for spicy food from Sri Lanka and there will be new opportunities  for Sri Lanka’s full bodied spicy food exports in US.

Reps from more than 20 leading firms-including Elephant House and Coca Cola participated in the session.

Sri Lanka makes their presence felt at the Paperworld 2013 exhibition held in Frankfurt

The Paperworld International Trade Fair is  a specialized fair for office supplies, school supplies, stationery and paper products held annually. It is an important venue for developing new contacts and maintaining existing business relationships for Sri Lankan exporters in the printing and stationery industry.  It is well recognized by buyers to source gifts and premium products including Office and School Supplies and Christmas Decorations. 

Paperworld 2013, held in January 2013 at Frankfurt, Germany which provided a great opportunity for exhibitors and trade visitors to study and analyze the position of the competitors and global market trends in products and  prices.  It also provided an insight into innovative and eco friendly products made of environmental friendly materials.

Facts at a glance

 2,967 exhibitors and 83,206 visitors from all over the world participated in paperworld  2013

• Everything revolved around tomorrow’s trends, impulses and business opportunities.
• 66 countries presented their latest products and marketing concepts at the Paperworld, Creativeworld and Christmas world trade fairs in Frankfurt.
• With its comprehensive complementary programme, Paperworld was also a valuable source of impulses and ideas: important trends, such as the presentation of themed and product worlds, commercial purchasing, multi-channel strategies and sustainability, were taken up in business programmes, special presentations and forums.
• Almost 300 people attended Procurement Business Programme, which was aimed at buyers of commercial office materials from private companies and public authorities with 100 or more office workplaces. This is an increase of 70 percent over last year.

 Sri Lankan Participants – Country pavilion organised by EDB –Sri Lanka

• Amoha Pvt Ltd (Back to Earth)
• PrintXcel
• Graphic Sytems (Pvt) Ltd
• Nalaka Stationary
• CIC Holdings 
• Toppan Forms 
• Madhawee Printers

Recommendations made by the Sri Lanka Consulate General in Frankfurt Germany

Paper world, creative world, and Christmas world is an emerging market in Europe.

It presents enormous business opportunity for businesses in Sri Lankan in terms of presenting their creative and production capacity. It also gives an opportunity to Sri Lankan companies to meet with companies that are looking for prospective business partners in the east.

After the successful completion of Paperworld this year we encourage companies to make arrangements in advance to participate in next year’s event.

Contact the trade division of the consulate for further information and assistance

‘More Americans looking for Lankan spiced food’ – Dr Rasco

Daily News - 19/06/2013

For the first time in Sri Lanka’s exports history, a renowned global food scientist began on June 11 to extensively train Lankan food exporters on the much needed international regulatory compliance rules. And processed food has grown to become a key component of Sri Lanka’s overall annual food exports.

“In 2012, 26% of total food and beverages exports were processed foods, at $ 73.4 mn. Our overall processed food exports which stood at $ 67.1 mn in 2010 rose to a strong $ 95 mn in 2011,” said Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka on June 11 in Colombo. Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the launch event of fist International Food Safety and Compliance Training session by globally renowned Food Scientist Dr. Barbara Rasco, Associate Professor of the Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition of the Washington State University.


The pioneering session was organised by the Sri Lanka Food Processor’s Association with the support of Minister Bathiudeen’s Industry and Commerce in partnership with the Spice Council and VEGA-FEG. “Dr Rasco’s main contribution to Food Sciences is the integration of the legal and technical aspects and trying to come up with rational practices for the global industry to make the overall value chain of food, safer. These types of awareness sessions are an urgent need, specially considering that 26% of our Food and Beverage exports consist of Processed Foods as we face global export turmoil,” said Minister.

“This is an export sector with strong potential and we need this types of initiatives to sustain our competitive edge” he said.

“I am happy to help Sri Lanka’s food industry to secure its exports competitiveness. I am also impressed with the level of sophistication of Sri Lanka’s food industry. You are very proactive,” said Dr Rasco, who admitted her strong liking for Sri Lankan jaggery and hot curries, and said, “Despite the difficulty to get in to new export markets and despite being expensive, your food operators and exporters are doing the right thing by following regulatory compliance.”

“Americans are beginning to look for spicy food from Sri Lanka. I see new opportunities for Sri Lanka’s full bodied spicy food exports in US.” He said.

“Reps from more than 20 leading firms-including Elephant House and Coca Cola- will be taking part in this session which will continue till June 21, ” said Ivan Peiris, Administrative Secretary of Sri Lanka Food Processors Association. “This is the first time that such an extensive programme of this nature is taking place in Sri Lanka,” Peiris added.

Sri Lanka Economic Summit from July 9-11

Daily News - 08/06/2013

The 14th annual Sri Lanka Economic Summit which scheduled to be held from July 9-11, 2013 in Colombo will have one of its sessions discussing about Sri Lanka's export strategy.

The Government policy framework has targeted to raise the rate of growth in exports to double that of GDP growth, but exports as a % of GDP have halved from year 2000 to 2012. The share of exports of Sri Lanka as a percentage of world exports has also declined over the years to reach 0.06% by 2011. The basket of merchandise exports from Sri Lanka as well as our exports markets have remained largely unchanged over the last few decades. The foregoing situation and change in the global economic scenario, with Asia gaining ground over the West, require us to rethink our export strategy given the importance of exports to a small economy targeting to achieve sustained high economic growth in the future.


Leading economists and key exporters have been invited to discuss and identify changes required to current strategy to rejuvenate the exports sector in Sri Lanka.

The keynote note speaker of this session will be Dr. Premachandra Athukorala, Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the University Of Manchester, UK.

Sri Lanka cinnamon exporters required to adhere to specifications

Colombo Page News Desk - 15/06/2013

Senior Minister for International Monetary Co-operation Dr. Sarath Amunugama has proposed to make it mandatory for Sri Lanka's cinnamon exporters to adhere to the specifications for Sri Lanka standard for exporting of cinnamon.

The proposed measure is aimed at preventing the export of low quality cinnamon and enhancing the production of cinnamon in the country sustaining the livelihood of more than 350,000 families engaged in the industry, the government says.

The Cabinet has approved the Minister's proposal to submit the Gazette Extraordinary notification on the specifications to Parliament for approval.

Sri Lanka is one of the world's leading exporters of cinnamon, producing about 85 percent of international output. The USA and Mexico are the main buyers of Ceylon Cinnamon.

Cinnamon is currently the dominant spice in Sri Lanka in terms of the foreign exchange earnings.

Sri Lanka plans to increase the cinnamon exports to a target of one billion US dollars by 2015, the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) says.

Ornamental fish export revenue surpasses $ 7 m

Sunday Observer - 16/06/2013
By Lalin Fernandopulle

The demand for ornamental fish has increased with its revenue surpassing $ 7 million, said a major ornamental fish exporter at an event to record Sri Lanka winning 30 awards at the recently concluded Aquarama 2013 ornamental fish competition in Singapore.

He said that revenue from ornamental fish exports last year was $ 7.52 million and added that the industry targets a higher revenue this year with more fish breeders showing a keen interest to enter the ornamental fish export market.“The ornamental fish industry has a bright future. The lack of new species is a major hindrance to boost exports,” a fish breeder said.Ornamental fish breeders have called upon the government to support the industry and encourage more fish breeders to create a vibrant export market. Fish breeders said that adding new varieties with more export incentives for breeders will help enhance export revenue.


They said that the export of ornamental fish is a lucrative industry and that policy makers should focus on developing the sector.“Foreign buyers order large stocks, but we can only provide half the quantity they order due to the lack of species,” a fish exporter said.

Seventeen Sri Lankan fish breeders participated in the Aquarama, one of the largest ornamental fish exhibitions held biannually in Singapore. The competition comprised 10 major ornamental fish exporting countries. Sri Lanka was ranked second in the competition.

Sri Lanka's export revenue dipped by eight percent in the first quarter this year. Export income declined in recent years partly due to low external demand. The Export Development Board (EDB) will draw up a strategic plan to boost export revenue, said the new chairman of the EDB, Bandula Egodage.

He said that the ornamental fish export sector has huge potential to be a major revenue spinner. “We plan to boost the export industry,” he said.


Sri Lanka's export revenue is currently around $ 10 billion. The EDB targets an export revenue of $ 20 billion by 2020.

Sri Lanka exports 2% of world’s ornamental fish supply

DailyFT

Rishad Bathiudeen (Minister of Industry and Commerce) greets a Lankan award winner of the AQUARAMA 2013 on 12 June at the EDB Premises, Colombo as Sujata Weerakoone (DG- EDB-far left),Bandula Egodage (Chairman-EDB, second from left) and Yousuf Maraikkar (Executive Director-EDB-fourth from left) look on .

Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka Rishad Bathiudeen yesterday revealed that Sri Lanka have more than 2% share of the global ornamental fish market which is around US$ 340 million. “We are also now recognised as one of the best ornamental fish suppliers to the international market.”

Bathiudeen was addressing the press briefing held at the Export Development Board (EDB) to announce Sri Lanka’s strong achievements at the AQUARAMA 2013 event in Singapore.
More than 300 competitors from 10 countries, submitting 1,350 entries, were taking part in the highly competitive AQUARAMA 2013 international ornamental fishery event held in Singapore from 28 May to 2 June.

Seventeen Sri Lankan firms, facilitated and sponsored by EDB, competing in the event won 30 awards, which was symbolically re-awarded by Minister Bathiudeen with his praise, yesterday.

“Sri Lanka has been placed as the second largest award winner, at the Asia’s biggest, international ornamental fish and accessories exhibition AQUARAMA 2013, which is a great achievement for this sector. We won 30 awards at the 2013 Singapore event and stands as the second, in comparison to Singapore which is the number one ornamental fish exporting country, in the world,” Minister Bathiudeen said.

The ministers also added: “Therefore, this is not only a honour for Sri Lanka but also an important development for our ornamental fish industry. EDB has sponsored 17 participants at this event and submitted 232 entries in various fish categories. In the commendable 2012 budget proposals by the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, provisions have been made to upgrade facilities of exporters to increase the quality of fish exported from Sri Lanka.

“This is another stepping stone, towards our US$ 20 billion export target, by 2020. The value of ornamental fish exports in 2012 stood at US$ 7.52 million. The major export markets, for our aquarium fish are; Japan, USA, UK, Germany and France. We began ornamental fish exports in 1950’s. Sri Lanka have more than 2% share of the global ornamental fish market, which is annually around US$ 340 million. I am pleased to say that now we are recognised as one of the best ornamental fish suppliers to the international market.”

Live Tropical Fish Exporters Association Co-President Rohan Fernando, addressing the event said: “The backbone of fish exports are the fish breeders of this country. But exporters have been starving without new species to breed and export. Fortunately, the AQUARAMA event, promoted by EDB here, has come to the rescue.”

In the budget proposal 2012, provisions have been made to set up/upgrade quarantine and withholding facilities of exporters to increase the quality of fish exporting from Sri Lanka. The EDB is the implementing agency for the program.