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We Sri Lankans are in many ways lucky to live in a multi-cultural, multi-religious country as we get the opportunity to learn and experience many things we would not have if we were strictly mono-cultural. Not only do we enjoy each other's festivals we also celebrate them by having so many holidays.

Now is that good for business?

Most certainly not. Increasingly, business leaders are calling for a change, asking that the number of public, bank and mercantile holidays be curtailed. Most recently the Trade Chambers called upon the government to reduce the number of holidays. Neil Seneviratne, Secretary of the National Chamber was constrained to call the situation absurd.

Most managers will agree with Seneviratne. Across the country many businesses suffer from the holidays and the resulting loss in productivity.

And this is not a new issue as has been pointed out to us by Henry Pieris, Chairman of Richard Pieris and Co., one of Sri Lanka's leading business figures.

In 1973, in an address to the Employers Federation of Ceylon, Pieris elaborated on the same subject. In this speech he said "when we came to the month of April, a member of the Council remarked succinctly and obviously with his tongue in his cheek that it would be more appropriate for us to determine the working days instead of the holidays. We laughed heartily at the spontaneity of his wit. On reflection, however, it became apparent that it was no joke."

If it was not a joke thirty years ago, it is an even grimmer situation today.

In those days the businessmen in Sri Lanka competed mostly against each other. Today the situation is very different. In an increasingly globalised world Sri Lankan manufacturers have to battle it out with their counterparts around the world.

The world market is brutal, it takes no prisoners. Buyers will go for the best quality at the best price. Manufacturers have to be able to deliver top quality products on time, at the best price to the market. Even a manufacturer whose market is only Sri Lanka has to compete with imported items.

Already Sri Lankan manufacturers are operating with many disadvantages because of gross mismanagement and a lack of planning by the authorities. The biggest disadvantage is the high cost of production in Sri Lanka. It is higher than many of the countries in the Asian region because of the high cost of electricity, and the weakness of our general infrastructure.

The lack of proper highways means the amount of time and fuel it takes to transport a container from Kandy to Colombo for instance is way below regional standards. The hundred kilometers takes nearly three hours in Sri Lanka whereas the same distance would have taken half that time in China or Malaysia.

We now have a business-friendly government, and from the pronouncements it makes, it appears the authorities have an understanding of the need to make Sri Lanka more productive and efficient. However installing new infrastructure and making power cheaper will take a long time.

In the meantime what we can do quickly to help catch up with the rest of the region is to increase productivity.

We extol the virtues our highly productive, disciplined and educated labour force to the world to attract investors, but keeping productivity high has become a problem for Sri Lankan manufacturers. Each Sri Lankan worker has to deliver at the level of what workers in China, Hongkong and the Philippines do if this country is to remain competitive.

But if our workers are on statutory holiday most of the time and if the holiday seasons cause absenteeism of a high level, then surely the productivity of our manufacturers will fall.

While the managers and the owners of businesses will see the sense of curtailing holidays, it will be difficult to persuade workers that the holidays for special days they are entitled to by law. So the employers need to convince their workers of the need to be more productive and make their workplace competitive with the rest of the world.

But the true direction for this measure must come from government. It should be relatively easy to reduce the number of holidays - of course there will be religious sentiments and cultural sensitivities government will have to deal with, but that's what governments are for.

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