'The new year, a challenge for business’

Sunday Observer - 21/12/2014
By Lalin Fernandopulle

With the year coming to a close and a few more days for the new year, the business community expressed mixed sentiments about the past year and the year ahead. Some corporate and Chamber heads were pleased with the growth in business given the political stability and business environment.

Chevron Lubricant Lanka PLC, Managing Director and CEO Kishu Gomes said that 2014 was a fairly good year though there was no phenomenal growth in the lubricant business and added that there was economic predictability during the year than in 2013. He said that he was optimistic about 2015 and added that more would depend on the political and macro economic stability in the country.

The global economic scenario has a mixed outlook with certain countries emerging strong from the economic crisis and showing enormous potential for trade and investment while the Middle East and Russia are grappling to survive with the slump in oil prices and sanctions.

International Tea Day Observed In Mumbai

On the occasion of International Tea Day, Dlecta Café – India’s leading beverage vending solutions company observed the day by raising awareness on tea followed by a Tea Tasting session to celebrate the legacy of the iconic beverage. Prahlad Kakkar, renowned Ad man and tea aficionado attended the event and shared stories on his love for the beverage. The day was also marked by the unveiling of the first ever automatic fresh tea brewing machine. The machine is unique to the world of tea and is being patented for technology.

International Tea Day has been observed since 2005 in many tea producing countries most of which are Asian. The first International Tea Day was celebrated in New Delhi on the 15th December 2005 and has ever since been observed by several countries each year.

World’s top ICT economy in rare opening for Lankan start-ups

Asian Tribune - 12/12/2014

In a major renewal of its economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, World’s ICT innovation leader has announced that it is ready to form a joint Business Council with Sri Lanka for the first time, as revealed on 04 December-and Lankan ICT start-ups have received a breakthrough invitation to showcase themselves at one of world’s top-tier start-up events in 2015.

“It is time that we establish a Finland-Sri Lanka Business Council for B2B activities. Such mechanisms will kick-start the process. We are also looking forward to see SME level Sri Lankan ICT BPM and business start-ups at the 2015 ‘Slush’ event in Helsinki” said an upbeat Matti Anttonen (Finnish Deputy Minister of External Economic Relations & Finnish Under-Secretary of State) on 04 December in Colombo.

‘Lanka IT sector to hit $1B mark next year’-EDB

news.lk - 05/12/2014

Sri Lanka’s surging IT and BPO exports would hit the critical dollar one billion mark as early as next year, surpassing previous expectations! And London Stock Exchange and HSBC have praised the Lankan IT sector ‘with joy’, as revealed on 05 December in Jaffna. And the pioneering Northern IT Exports forum by EDB & ICTA was packed with enthusiastic regional IT industry.

“We earned $719 Mn from ICT exports, and our projection for 2014 is $820 Mn. At this rate, we expect to hit dollar one billion mark very soon-as early as 2015. We have seen 123% growth in IT sector over the last five years. London Stock Exchange and HSBC also praised the Lankan IT sector with joy” said Saman Maldeni (Director, Export Services of SLEDB) on 05 December in Jaffna.

EDB Director Saman was addressing the pioneering IT/BPM Export Forum & Entrepreneurship Worksop that took place in Jaffna on 05 December at Jaffna’s Tilko City Hotel. The first ever such Forum to be held in Northern Province, it packed 30 ICT operators and 30 would be young entrepreneurs and start-ups and seven leading Lankan IT BPM CEOs. Held on the theme of “Accelerating IT Exports and Fostering Entrepreneurship”, the one day, one-of-a-kind session consisted of presentations from seven Lankan IT firms – Virtusa, Stax Inc, WSO2, Calcey, CodeGen, Hayleys BPO, 99X Technology well as top two public sector agencies  ICTA and EDB. Co-organisers of the Forum were EDB and ICTA.

“Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM sector vision 2022 is a $ 5 Bn revenue, 200,000 direct jobs and 1000 start-ups. Northern region has been identified as one of the major regions that can harness its strengths and skills to make this dream a reality” said EDB Director Saman, and added: “Jaffna region’s stress free environment, availability of skills and infrastructure such as internet and electricity are key factors in this regard. National Outsource Association of UK awarded SL the Outsource destination of 2013 which shows the up and coming potential of Lankan IT and business processing sector. In 2013, we earned $719 Mn from ICT exports, and our projection for 2014 is $820 Mn. At this rate, we expect to hit dollar one billion mark very soon-as early as 2015. We have seen 123% growth in IT sector over the last five years. This growth was across all IT/BPM sectors, in domestic and export sectors.  A reason for this is our high quality-London Stock Exchange and HSBC also praised the Lankan IT sector with joy. This was due to our high quality software products and services that they received. EDB is not a regulator in Lankan exports but a promoter, supporter, facilitator and mediator operating through a regional network.”

Addressing the event, Mano Sekaram (SLASSCOM Vice Chairman) said:  ““Just five years ago, such an event was merely a pipe dream. Today however peace and prosperity is finally the reality we are living in and events like this are not only possibility but happening as we speak. We kicked off the Jaffna IT week two days ago at Vembadi School ,where we shared with the school children who are the future leaders of our country of the career prospects in IT/BPM –this was a successful 2 days in which we had over 2000 children and youth taking part. Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM sector has taken less than 15 years to become the country’s fifth largest exporter. In 2013, export revenue grew to an estimated $ 719Mn, employing 80000 with 220 firms engaged in it. We have an ambitious vision-our 2022 vision of the industry is to be a $5 Billion industry creating 200,000 Jobs. Part of our strategy  is to build regional ICT capacity creating 2 tier cities and fostering entrepreneurship to ignite start-ups.  Today, the Western Province contributes over 95% of IT/BPM exports. The creation of ‘Second Tier Cities’ –Kandy, Galle and Jaffna-will IT empower the regions and would see a paradigm shift from being Colombo-centric to regional-centric IT development. Furthermore, it has been identified that the proliferation of ICT in provincial regions is the fastest way of developing marginalised areas. Let me thank all the my industry friends , industry leaders /CEO, EDB officials, ICTA  colleagues and our sponsors for  working tirelessly  to put together this even and coming all the way to Jaffna.”


Reshan Devapura (CEO-ICT Agency Sri Lanka), addressing the event, said: “Previously we expected  to break $ 1 Billion mark in IT revenue by 2016 or later but now, with latest revenue projections coming in, we are expecting to hit $ one billion revenue by 2015 with 100,000 IT sector employment in ’15.”


EDB has conducted many IT related events, conferences, trade exhibitions, both locally and abroad. It also successfully conducted export coaching programmes for IT sector personnel.

EDB to host international delegation at SLDF 2014

Daily FT - 05/12/2014

Lanka Design Festival (SLDF) 2014, which is backed by local industries and the Government, is scheduled to kick off over the next few days.

The main objective of the festival is to promote design driven exports as a major economic sector for the country. For this reason, SLDF is supported by Sri Lanka’s apex institute for driving exports, the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB).

Together with the EDB, SLDF’s fashion edition is held under the theme ‘From manufacturing to branding’, encompassing Sri Lanka move towards a brand-driven future with regional hub status in design.
In light of this, SLDF will join hands with EDB to draw international attention to the massive potential of emerging exports like contemporary handloom fashion.

Using SLDF as a platform to gain worldwide recognition for the growing potential of handlooms as a high fashion export, EDB is hosting an international delegation of buyers, fashion opinion leaders, media, retailers and fashion presentation experts from Europe, North America, India, etc. This delegation will be direct buyers, promoters and ambassadors for local design driven exports.

EDB Chairman and Chief Executive Bandula Egodage stated that SLDF’s objectives to promote traditional crafts revitalised through design such as handloom, aligns closely with EDB’s mission to discover, develop and promote new design exports from the country.

“EDB is an institution dedicated to strengthening existing exports and promoting new exports for Sri Lanka. SLDF plays an important part in helping us in this mission by integrating design into traditional sectors like handloom and crafts to revive them as new exports for Sri Lanka.

“We find it crucial for our exports to meet the needs of the global market and evolve as high quality products and we’re proud to be part of the process of traditional cottage industries transforming into potential power exports with SLDF 2014. We have supported SLDF for the past few years and in 2014 too we are delighted to support the event as key stakeholders,” Egodage said.

In addition to hosting a powerful international delegation of ambassadors for Sri Lankan design-driven exports, EDB has also extended its support to host an impressive fashion display of contemporary handloom fashion, produced and presented by an international team of experts.

This dazzling display of locally woven textiles as high-end fashion includes a range of cutting-edge collections targeting global consumers and the launch of an e-commerce platform where European and North America consumers can directly purchase Sri Lanka handloom online.

SLDF 2014, the national celebration of design supported by the Sri Lanka Export Development Board, will include an exciting and educational range of forums, exhibitions and shows which will be held at SLECC from 5-7 December.

In addition to the EDB, SLDF is also supported by the Ministry of Economic Development, Sri Lanka Tourism and Sri Lanka Apparel as key stakeholders. Brandix Lanka Ltd. and MAS Holdings are the official fashion industry patrons while other supporters include Coats Thread Lanka – official thread and zip partners, GT Nexus – official technology partner, Daily FT/Daily Mirror/Sunday Times – official print media, MTV/MBC – official electronic media, Mount Lavinia – official venue partner, Triad – official communications partner and Cheryl Gooneratne Hair & Beauty Academy – official hair & makeup partner, Sunshine Travels – official travel partner and Pico – official exhibitor logistics partner.

Visegrád Four to synergise Lanka's FTAs to penetrate South Asia

Daily News - 04/12/2014

The V4 industrial economy billed as the Tetra Tiger due to its high growth, has revealed for the first time that it wants to synergise Lanka's historic FTAs to penetrate South Asia, and it is also readying for new bilateral efforts of high capacity across the board-in Lanka's wheat production, energy and even defence.

"Our aim is to make Sri Lanka our business and investment platform to South Asia. There are many Slovakian manufacturers ready to invest here, produce and export to South Asian markets using your FTAs with India and Pakistan," said Peter Burian, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic recently.


V4 stands for Visegrád Four (or Visegrád Group) -an alliance of four Central European states of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia who grouped as V4 in 1991 to further their EU integration and was also called as the 'Tetra Tiger' due to its raging GDP growth up-to 2007. State Secretary Burian was making a courtesy call on Minister Bathiudeen with two members of his official delegation to Sri Lanka. Joining Minister Bathiudeen at the in-depth discussions were Bandula Egodage (Chairman & CEO-EDB) and other top EDB officials.

"Our intention is to renew trade with Sri Lanka. It is time to leverage the political friendship and understanding between both countries towards trade and investment promotion at both sides. We have something to offer in every aspect of Sri Lanka's five hub development strategy," said State Secretary Burian.

"We are very interested in SME and industrial cooperation with Sri Lanka-there are many Slovakian manufacturers ready to invest here, produce and export to South Asian markets using your FTAs with India and Pakistan."

"Our main export to Slovakia is apparel. With the efforts of my Department of Commerce and EDB, we have diversified our exports to Slovakia beyond apparel, with tyres, coconut fibre, rubber tubes and other textile articles. Still there is great, unrealised trade potentials that we need to explore since $ 21 million total trade shows that we are largely virgin markets to each other. And since 95% of our exports to Slovakia are our apparels, we invite Slovakian investments to this sector as well."

Minister Bathiudeen said, "We import almost 900,000 metric tonnes of wheat annually and therefore your support to kick-start our wheat production could save our foreign exchange considerably."

Over US$ 1b gems to China by 2016

Daily News - 05/12/2014

Sri Lanka could bridge the trade imbalance with China to a greater extent and also increase the US$ one billion overall export target in 2016, if the local gem/precious stone exports were encouraged and developed. At present there is a huge trade gap in favor of China, Director Marketing and Export -National Gem and Jewellery Authority, Rohan Perera said.

"We are now looking at increasing gem export to China being the biggest buyer in the recent past. Since, China being a prosperous country in the world the demand for super luxury items like gems has increased considerably," Perera told the Daily News Business.

As far as Sri Lanka exports are concerned, China is the 18th largest export market for Sri Lanka with exports of US$ 121 million in 2013, one percent of total exports of Sri Lanka against the import of US$ 3 billion worth of goods to Sri Lanka

This shows that there is huge un-favorable trade balance between the two countries.

The positive list of products may include large number of products in the proposed FTA, but the issue is whether Sri Lanka could supply all the products.

Perera said that with the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) many Chinese buyers will tend to buy gemstones especially blue sapphire.

Therefore, we could bridge the trade gap and also increase gem exports to US$ one billion by 2016, he said.

The government has very good ambitious schemes to increase gem export. he added.

Director Marketing and Export authority being the regulator developer and promoter of the sector have launched may projects to promote the sector by encouraging new players to achieve set targets.

Further, they also encourage all gem exporters to participate in international trade fairs and exhibitions, he said.

China could supply any volume of its products. Out of the 30 products exported to China, five products, apparel, tea fibre, tobacco and rubber cover nearly 75 percent of exports to China.