Business

SLCSMI pays tribute to assistors of SME sector

Published

2 months ago

July 30, 2020

Sri Lanka Chamber of Small and Medium Industries (SLCSMI), incorporated by an Act of Parliament, as the apex body for SME sector in the country, initiated several measures to assist the SMEs, being the most affected sector due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, during last few months.

The actions included collaborating with other chambers and government institutions in identifying the affected businesses and providing assistance to overcome the challenges, negotiating with banks and financial institutions to ease the loan terms and extend credit facilities and lobbying government institutions including the Central Bank to roll out various relief measures including the extension of the moratorium.

Among the measures, the webinar series organized by the chamber was well received by the SME community and the Chamber gained overwhelming commendations from multiple stakeholders including several foreign agencies and enthusiasts. The webinar series covered a wider range of topics addressing the vital issues faced by the SMEs in the prevailing circumstances and the resource persons included top officials of government agencies, senior officers of leading banks, eminent personalities in the industry, representatives of various chambers and highly acclaimed scholars. The webinar series was moderated by Chaaminda Kumarasiri, who is the strategic adviser to SLCSMI, a leading management consultant as well as a strong advocate of MSMEs and entrepreneurship in the country.

The Chamber recently organized an event at The Kingsbury Hotel – Colombo, to pay tribute to the parties who joined hands with the Chamber in executing its activities during the difficult times. A key item in the event was the felicitation ofthe Minister of Small & Medium Business and Enterprise Development, Industries and Supply chain Management, Hon. Wimal Weerawansa for his yeoman service to support the SME sector and foster entrepreneurship in the country during the last several months, amidst the pandemic.

The President of SLCSMI Prof. Rohan De Silva, on behalf of the SME community, conveyed his gratitude to all the parties who worked hard in supporting the SME sector starting from H.E. the President Gotabaya Rajapaksha, Hon. Minister Wimal Weerawansa, government agencies, banks and other like-minded institutions and people. He emphasized the importance of having a National Policy for the SME sector and pledged his fullest cooperation to the government in driving the sector. Prof.Rohan De Silva also brought to the notice of the minister that, this is the first time in the history SLCSMI felicitating a minister, as the Chamber felt it’s necessary to appreciate the outstanding contribution made by the Hon. Minister to resolve many long overdue issues and his prompt intervention to initiate several policy measures to save the local industries.

Hon. Wimal Weerawansa pledged his commitment to make H.E. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s mission towards a people-centric production economy a reality and commended the outstanding contribution of SLCSMI to the SME sector in the country. He highlighted several measures recently taken by him with the blessings of H.E. The President to save and serve the local industries; such as establishment of the inter-ministerial task force on industrial and enterprise development, curtailment of imports to protect local industries and resuming of operations at the state-owned Valaichchenai Paper Mill.

He further, indicated the government’s intention to establish a dedicated Bank for SMEs, with low interest rates on concessionary provisions and appealed the cooperation of the Chamber and other stakeholders in these endeavors.

The strategic adviser to SLCSMI, Chaaminda Kumarasiri emphasized the importance of the policy consistency between those ministries and government agencies working towards developing the local industries and those in the running of commercial activities, quoting an example from the history where commercial institutions had taken steps to import rice, while another set of agencies striving to protect local farmers. He also highlighted the importance of undisturbed flow of activities within government agencies based on an established road map, which is often hampered due to haphazard changes in the leadership mostly owing to shuffling of ministers.

Emeritus chairman of D. Samson & Sons (Pvt) Ltd.and a past president of SLCSMI Deshamanya Nandadasa Rajapakse, Chairman of IDB, Upasena Dissanayake and Chairman of NEDA, Anushka Gunasinghe also addressed the gathering while representatives of government agencies, banks, chambers, professional bodies, resource persons of the webinar series and over 60 leading industrialists in the country graced the occasion

Business

BITUMIX – locally manufactured sealant- catering to rubber plantation sector

Published

13 hours ago

September 21, 2020

Sahan Weerasooriya

BITUMIX, the flagship Bitumen company in Sri Lanka is ready with yet another star product in their product portfolio, catering to the Rubber Plantation sector. The company has recently established a modern manufacturing facility to produce high quality Bitumen based sealants for pasting rain guard covers above the tapping panel of the rubber tree. Rubber plantations are reported to be benefitted by pasting rain guards recommended by the Rubber Research Institute (RRI) of Sri Lanka, which facilitates continuous tapping even during rainy season and as a result the estimated annual latex production yield can be increased significantly.

While the local Rubber sealant market has been dominated by imported products, BITUMIX is expanding their product portfolio with a focus to produce locally manufactured sealants conforming to the highest international quality standards using a modern processing facility, proven product recipes and high quality raw materials, thereby reducing the necessity of importing such products to the Country.

The introduction of this product facility by BITUMIX is very much in line with the Sri Lankan government’s drive to save all important foreign exchange during these challenging times.

Business

Our mission is to enable wealth generation for all citizens: CSE chairman

Published

13 hours ago

September 21, 2020

Sahan Weerasooriya

Reproduced below are some excerpts from the speech made by CSE Chairman Dumith Fernando at the recent special bell ringing ceremony organized at the CSE under the patronage of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to mark the Digitalization of the Sri Lankan Stock Market. The launch event which had been themed as ‘Hyper-Leap to the future’ saw the participation of key policymakers and industry leaders of the country.

“In this 35th year of operation of the Colombo Stock Exchange, we are gathered today to launch the Digitalization of the CSE and its entry into the Future”.

“The step we are taking today in partnership with, and enabled by, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka to Digitalize the stock market – is a first step towards a transformation that can reposition Sri Lanka in a digital financial marketplace. While this may be the first step, it is a major milestone in the advancement for the CSE. Your presence here today, to witness this momentous leap in our nation’s financial infrastructure is a great pleasure and an honor to us. Therefore, on behalf of the Board of Directors and Management of the Colombo Stock Exchange, I warmly welcome you to this home of the country’s stock market and this event. We are deeply grateful, especially to you Hon. Prime Minister, for your presence here today”.

“At the CSE our mission is clear. Our goal is to Revitalize long-term Capital Mobilization for businesses, and to Enable Wealth generation for all citizens by providing a Trusted Venue for Trading and Depository Services”.

“Now if we are serious about enabling wealth generation for all citizens through the CSE, there are 3 things we need to do –

1) Make it easier for citizens to access and learn about the stock market;

2) Make it easier and more efficient to complete transactions – end-to-end; and

3) Make it cheaper to perform all these activities.

The Digitalization of the CSE does exactly these things. With the new Digitalization app being launched today, users will be able to open an account at the Central Depositary System (commonly known as the CDS) and a stockbroker from anywhere in the country in a matter of minutes and begin trading within an hour. In addition, from today, trade settlements including sending trade confirmations and payment settlement can be done entirely online. With this, the Colombo Stock Exchange can also safely operate, completely virtually, even during a lockdown like we had earlier this year. Today’s launch of the new and improved websites of the CSE, CDS and SEC as well as the SEC’s Youtube channel will further support Digitalization by instantly delivering much needed information to issuers and investors”.

“This launch is a result of a large team of people who have worked together tirelessly for months. In the interest of time, I will leave it to our CEO, Rajeeva Bandaranaike to recognize all those who contributed to this effort. But I must say in no uncertain terms, that this milestone was achieved through a combination of the leadership given by the SEC, as well as extensive collaboration between the SEC, CSE and the member stockbroker firms and I thank you all for that”.

Business

BOI approves agreements worth US$ 1.5 billion in first nine months

Published

13 hours ago

September 21, 2020

Sahan Weerasooriya

The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) has geared for a tremendous FDI earning within the first nine months of 2020, a press release issued by BOI said.

BOI Director General Sanjaya Mohottala said that the BOI has approved agreements worth US$ 1 .5 billion in the first nine months of this year. This value includes new investments and expansions of the ongoing projects. According to him this number is expected to reach US$ 2 to 2.5 billion by the end of this year.

With the unprecedented crisis triggered by the coronavirus, severely dented the world economy, it’s impressive to see the local Investors expanding their ventures in Sri Lanka. While the advanced economies are shrinking their activities, local investors grabbed the opportunities arisen in the present world market. The confidence of the existing investors in expanding their projects, strengthened the rupee value of the country, Mohottala added.

According to him the foreign investments are expected to grow significantly within the next two years and the basic requirements are already being worked out. A formal mechanism is being set up to initiate new investments as well.

There are influential factors to attract FDI to any country. This includes a stable government, stable polices, a proper legal frame work, and free trade agreements. A stable and an emphatic government has already been established and other sectors need to be updated to suit the present. This will enable the expected amount of FDI to the country. Meanwhile we are exploring the extensive global trade needs and the markets available to expand our production.

We also focus on the Sri Lankan work force and the areas where projects can be implemented. The Eravur fabric park is one of our significant initiative which will bring a huge foreign exchange saving to the country. It’s expected to establish a rubber-based manufacturing zone outside Colombo and Gampaha districts. Fisheries and aquatic resources projects are too in our concern. The focus is to implement these projects are in North, East and Northwest coasts. Furthermore, we intend to establish IT parks in Colombo, Gampaha, Kandy, Hambantota, Vavuniya and Jaffna districts with in next 05 years’ time. Young professionals from these areas who are qualified in IT field will be fortunate enough to work in these ventures.

The main role of the Board of Investment is to uplift the economy of the country, while attracting foreign direct investments. In addition, the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka stands for the economic and social development of the employees who contribute immensely to the growth of the economy. Apart from these ,we will take steps to integrate the people who live in undeveloped areas in to the economy, he said.