Peace in East creates HR pool for apparel industry

Anjana Samarasinghe

Peace in the East has opened up a huge pool of human resources to the local apperal sector, said CEO of Brandix Lanka Ashroff Omar at the 14th Presidential Export Awards, held at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday.

The local apparel industry faces the lack of a work force. If we can tap these resources the industry can easily double exports, he said.

"Our import duties for textiles and apparels are among the lowest in the world. We should work towards reciprocity from India and China. If we are successful we could easily pick up another US$ 500 million in exports to these two markets," Omar said.

"Sri Lankan apparel exports to the in 2000 were US$ 800 million and the country expects to touch US$ 1.5 billion this year. We have earned over US$ 600 million in seven years in spite of the quota free era," he said.

The public and private partnership worked well for the apparel industry and it has helped the industry to achieve several milestones. This will work for other industries too. He called for a single body representing all associations of the industry when dealing with the Government.

He said that in the late nineties the apparel industry was not getting much traction with the Government due to conflicting requests made by the five associations in the industry.

This led to an informal arrangement where all requests were made jointly by all the associations and we saw the Government officials responding favourably, he said.

Commenting on Government organisations, Omar said the BoI is ever ready to approve projects in the shortest possible time cutting through a lot of red tape. Foreign exchange remittances in the form of wire transfer, drafts or any other modern method are available.

The Department of Customs is very supportive of exporters who can clear a container within 24 hours. Export documentation is simple and hassle free. The EDB too plays a huge role in supporting exporters. Our port is still the best in the region and our connectivity is the envy of our neighbours, he added.

Export Development and International Trade Minister Prof. G.L Peiris said the country needs to focus on Central Asia as a new market. We are discussing the possibilities of including services to the Indo-Lanka FTA apart from the physical commodities.

However, local exports have showed tremendous growth during the first half of this year and some sectors have performed extremely well, he said.

Chairman of the Export Development Board Brian Angunawela said that award winners could use the logo of the Presidential Export Award for three years for their business activities.

When selecting exp- orters, an evaluation and selection panel has considered on foreign exchange earnings, the number of job opportunities generated by the company, CSR projects and the tax payments of the company, he said.