Local industrialists' good treatment of workers, a fillip to export promotion

- Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Minister:

Hiran H. Senewiratne

Launch: Many countries including the European Union have endorsed local industrialists' treatment of workers as best in the world and is a tremendous advantage to promote our exports in that region, Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Dr Sarath Amunugama said.

"Sri Lankan industrialists are giving a sense of dignity and respect to workers," Minister Amunugama said at the launching ceremony of the online investor friendly facility for export documentation for BOI.

From June 1, the BoI inaugurated the new online export cusdec system enabling sea freight documentation to be processed at the Central Verification Terminal at Urugodawatte and air freight will be done at the air cargo terminal at Katunayake.

Minister Amunugama said that EU region has highly commended our Sri Lankan industrialists because they respect the rights and workers ethics. Due to our good behaviour EU has permitted duty free access to our industrialists through GSP plus, he said.

Minister Amunugama said that to reap those benefits we have to infuse state-of-the-art technology to our export and import supporting system especially ancillary agencies like BOI, Sri Lanka Customs and other related entities.

Introducing the new online investor friendly export system will enable the investors to be internationally competitive. If the supporting systems are not efficient or effective it will create an economic loss to the companies, however, efficient they are, Minister Amunugama said.

He said at present the BoI is in the process of identifying crucial constraints to be addressed in the import and export sectors to ease out the business.

Chairman/Director General, BOI Dhammika Perera said that his objective always has been to make Sri Lanka more competitive as a destination for investment. He said that due to advanced features in the system it will make the processing of export documents much faster than at present. It is easily accessible to the investors and therefore there is minimum inconvenience, he said.

Another advantage of the system is that export documents can be submitted 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. How some countries have succeeded in attracting a large quantum of FDI is that they are always open for business which is clearly a move in the right direction for Sri Lanka, he said.