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The Apparel Industry Suppliers exhibition (AISEX), claimed to be the world's fourth largest garment exhibition will be held from November 8 to 10 at the Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre. It is organised by the Sri Lanka Apparel Institute (SLAI) and CDC Conventions (Pvt.) Ltd.

"The exhibition will focus on a wide range of apparel and textile machinery, accessories and services from many parts of the world and will benefit the local apparel Industry," said President of SLAI in Sri Lanka Prof. Lakdas Fernando, in an interview with the 'Daily News'. "With the current peace process we feel that this is an ideal climate to hold an exhibition of this nature. AISEX will also create an ideal opportunity for Apparel Manufacturers in Sri Lanka to view the latest developments in technology and support services to enhance the quality of the finished product in a cost effective manner."

He said that over 250 entrepreneurs and their staff from India, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Nepal along with an estimated audience of 5,000 Sri Lankans in the industry are expected to attend this event.

"The exhibition will also create an opportunity for suppliers and manufacturers related to the apparel industry to display their latest range of equipment."

Prof. Fernando said that SAARC is a major garment manufacturing hub in the world with 860 garment manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka and over 3,000 each in India and Bangladesh alone. "There are three major garment manufacturing related exhibitions conducted in Germany, Japan and the United States.

Entrepreneurs from the SAARC region were attending these exhibitions to update their technology and to purchase new machinery."

The President said that however garment industry members had to spend much money and in most cases found it very difficult to obtain visas to attend these exhibitions. "The end result was that only the top management level officials attended these exhibitions and most of them did not have the correct technical background to purchase the right machinery."

Prof. Fernando said that Sri Lanka is geographically located close to all the South Asian countries. "In addition we offer other advantages by way of less flying time, cheap air fair, hotels and Visa on arrival policy.

These advantages make AISEX a major attraction to all Asian countries. Due to over heads being low in Sri Lanka Asian garment manufacturing companies can even afford to send their technical staff to attend this event."

He said that today the garment industry is the number one foreign exchange earner to Sri Lanka contributing 53% of the total exports and there is no other industry coming close to this. "This industry provides direct employment to over 300,000."

He said that with the quota system scheduled to be abolished in 2005 it would be the 'small time garment manufacturer' that will be mostly affected. "I can only advise them to specialise in one area and go for niche markets."

He said that the agriculture industry slipped to second position in terms of foreign exchange earnings since there was no value addition done to the trade 15 years ago. "The garment industry too must take a lesson from this and have value addition done as far as possible."

After a long absence from the country, Prof. Fernando returned to Sri Lanka in 1976 having completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the field of Textiles at the University of Leeds, a world renowned centre of excellence for textile studies.

His mission was to set up a Department of Textiles at the University of Moratuwa. Thus he pioneered Textile Education and Training in Sri Lanka and the highly successful Textile Department at Moratuwa today with qualified staff laboratories and library is testimony to his untiring efforts. He later became the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Branch of the Textile Institute (TI) and realising the importance of the clothing industry to Sri Lanka founded the Sri Lanka Branch of the Clothing and Footwear Institute (CFI) of UK of which he was the Founder Chairman.

In recognition of his pioneering work, Prof. Fernando was awarded the prestigious Golden Medal in 1993 by the Clothing and Footwear Institute of UK.

With the worldwide merger of the TI and the CFI Prof. Fernando founded the first Sri Lankan Professional Body for the apparel industry namely the Sri Lanka Apparel Institute (SLAI). In the Mid 80's CFI and later SLAI conducted the Sri Lanka Apparel Fair which brought famous designers such as Junco Kushimo and Pierre Cardin to Sri Lanka.

AISEX is yet another innovative idea of Prof. Fernando which was aimed at bringing to Sri Lanka the latest developments in Technology and Machinery in this important industry to our doorstep.

AISEX has held successful exhibitions in 1995, 97 and 1999. The Sri Lanka Apparel Institute will uplift the standards of the event to international standards and make AISEX the supermarket/showcase for this industry in the SAARC region.

SS

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