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This is the last week of the year and the country has enjoyed a full 12 months without a war raging in the North and East.

For the business community this period of peace came in the nick of time, just before the economy deteriorated to a point of no return.

Apart from the aid pledged by donor countries for reconstruction and rehabilitation of war damaged areas there has been a renewed interest in Sri Lanka from the international investor community.

The fact that the giant Japanese conglomerate Mitsui has asked for facilities at Trincomalee to build a shipyard is an indicator that the world business community is showing interest in Sri Lanka. Mitsui is a large global player and has had several projects in Sri Lanka before. At the same time it has a reputation for being a conservative investor and prudent manager.

International expectations of Sri Lanka have been voiced by a number of people among them the American Ambassador Ashley Wills. He has been quoted as saying "if Sri Lanka continues to make good news in the US and globally on the peace and reforms side coupled with existing positive attributes such as outstanding human resource skills, there is no question of higher level of US investments flowing in and greater bilateral trade taking place."

Ambassador Wills also stressed that Sri Lanka must go ahead with its economic reform agenda for investors to see Sri Lanka as a friendly place to place their money.

So there is a good chance of investors entering Sri Lanka on an unprecedented scale. But are we ready for them?

Most of the companies coming into Sri Lanka will seek local partners, either as equals in investor terms or as vendors and service providers. Once an investor is interested in a particular country, he will check out the security and political situation, then the legal framework and its efficacy and finally look at the local business culture.

This final part is very important to Sri Lanka as we are a small and poor country. Because of our size and low economic level Sri Lanka will not be seen as a significant market for an investor wanting to build productive capacity here. Instead what the investor will seek is a base for exports to other countries and because we have free trade agreements with India and one in the pipeline with Pakistan we have a chance of getting companies wanting to penetrate those giant markets.

Both the government and the private sector have to ask themselves whether our companies are professional enough to attract such foreign firms seeking business marriages.

This country needs to urgently upgrade managerial skills, the basic skills of our workers and also bring up to speed the information technology and computing skills of their staff. A whole new, highly professional work culture has to be introduced.

Unfortunately that is sorely lacking in most companies in Sri Lanka, barring a few exceptions. This should be a matter of concern to the authorities if efficient services are to be provided to state-of-the-art global business concerns who show interest in Sri Lanka.

We also have to be acutely aware that many countries in the region are competing to attract these big transnationals to bring their money and expertise in. Countries such as Malaysia which have excellent infrastructure, a skilled worker base, high standards of security and a superb quality of life have attracted the most number of foreign investors.

In South Asia we can be a hub for various forms of manufacturing and services if we intelligently prepare ourselves for investment. The best way is for the government to work with the private sector to improve their performance and modernise as fast as possible.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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