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Ceylon Chamber showcases Sri Lanka at Partnership Summit 2008

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, along with the Board of Investment and Sri Lanka Tourism led a delegation to the Partnership Summit 2008, the flagship international event of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Ministers Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Professor G.L. Peiris and Milinda Moragoda are participating at this event, taking place from January 16 to 18 along with recently appointed Ambassadors of Tourism, Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga.

This year’s summit is held under the theme “Emerging Consensus: inclusive and sustainable development”, at the Hotel Crowne Plaza, Gurgaon, India.

The limelight would focus on Sri Lanka when the theme of Ramayana is hosted by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Investment (BOI) and Sri Lanka Tourism today.

The Summit brings together Heads of States and governments, ministers, senior bureaucrats, academicians and CEOs. Nations, States, corporate and individuals network and strategies to tap the power of ideas and forge mutually beneficial partnerships at various levels.

The Summit is attended by CEOs, Managing Directors and other senior people from large industry houses; Government officials and international delegates. A total of approximately 1000 delegates attend the Summit each year.

The three Government Ministers will participate at the technical sessions.

The Sri Lanka Business Session took place yesterday while at a separate session on the same day. Dr. Sarath Amunugama spoke on the “Role of Technology in Economic Development” and Professor G.L. Peiries addressed the gathering on the FTA and CEPA.

Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Mahen Dayananda is also participating in Partnership Summit 2008.

Secretary General/CEO of the Ceylon Chamber, Prema Cooray, speaking from Gurgaon said “This is a fine opportunity to showcase Sri Lanka to the Indian Corporate Community. We expect more than 1000 Indian delegates here in addition to several foreign delegations led by their leadership”.

Partnering the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Investment and Sri Lanka Tourism is SriLankan Airlines.

The Partnership Summit has become one of the most important international business events in India and aims to further partnerships, to build ideologies based on shared dreams and visions that bind societies together in our knowledge driven world.

The Summit has attracted names like Tony Blair, Prime Minister, UK; Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister, Singapore; Alexander Kwasniewski, President of Poland; Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy (1998); John Major, Prime Minister, UK (1997), Jiri Paroubek, Prime Minister of Czech Republic (2006) and various others.

Nice one for Emirates

Emirates is stepping up its services within Europe by increasing flights to Nice and connecting the French city non-stop to the airline’s international hub in Dubai.

The current three flights a week from Nice, each with a stop in Rome, will change to five weekly non-stop services from December 1, 2008.

With these new services, passengers from the south of France will be able to take advantage of connections to many of the destinations on the unfolding Emirates’ network.

Emirates will be the only airline offering such regular connecting flights linking southern France with the Middle East, Asia and the Far East.

The flights will be operated by an Airbus A330-200 aircraft in a three class configuration of 12 seats in First Class, 42 seats in Business Class and 183 seats in Economy Class. All passengers will enjoy the world renowned Emirates in-flight entertainment system and award winning meals service.

The new services will coincide with the airline’s 15th anniversary of flights from Nice to Dubai.

Ghaith Al Ghaith, Emirates’ Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations Worldwide said: “It is fitting that we are rolling out these significant changes at the same time that we are celebrating 15 years of the Nice-Dubai service, which reflects the burgeoning demand of travellers in and out of southern Europe.

We can now provide so many more opportunities for travellers from the south of France by using the full extent of the Emirates network, which now numbers 99 destinations in 62 countries. Passengers can set their horizons on destinations that, in the past, meant travel to Paris or other cities for connections.”

The new flights will operate on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in both directions. EK 78 will depart Nice at 1440 arriving in Dubai 2355. The flight from Dubai, EK 77, will leave at 0855 and arrive in Nice at 1310. The new services will offer more than 80 tonnes of cargo capacity in each direction each week via Emirates’ SkyCargo.

More capacity will be added to the Paris/Dubai route with both of its twice daily services operated by Boeing 777 aircraft from the end of February 2008.

Holcim Awards Competition 2008

RAMANI KANGARAARACHCHI

Holcim Lanka is determined that Sri Lanka participate at the forthcoming Holcim Awards Competition which will be held in 2008. “Holcim Awards Competition will be a golden opportunity for Sri Lanka to be placed for global recognition on sustainable construction.

As such we encourage any number of entries from Sri Lanka and give all the necessary support and guidance to university students, professional institutions and individuals by all possible means,” Managing Director, Holcim Lanka, Peter Spirig said. He stated that entries can be submitted online at www.holcimawards.org until 29th February.

The promotion of this competition has been on in Sri Lanka since July 2007 and the official briefing was done in September by the Head of Holcim Foundation Edward Schwarz, in which students of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Moratuwa, professional institutions and national media participated.

“As sustainable construction is a new concept we have launched several activities throughout the year to make people aware of the importance of it. But we cannot have very high expectations until they are convinced,” Spirig said.

However, he was happy to note that the universities and professional institutes are working hard on it. “Sri Lanka would have a chance if they enter before the closing date.

There is a special category for professionals under 35 years of age this year to give an opportunity for the next generation of students, he said.” This is in addition to construction projects at an advanced stage of design.

The Awards competition seeks visions and ideas at a conceptual level. The Awards are open to anyone involved with projects in the area of sustainable construction-architects, planners, engineers or project owners.

All building projects are eligible for the competition if construction had not started before June 1, 2007. The first phase of the competition will select regional winners in 2008 that will automatically qualify for the global competition to be held in 2009.

Ample opportunities for construction service providers

Excon 2007, that brought together Sri Lankan Architects and Quantity Surveyors, exposed their engineering capabilities available in abundance in Sri Lanka. There are ample potential opportunities for Sri Lankan engineering services exporters in the Middle East.

The identified service sector, namely professional services, is recognised as a vital sector in our economic activity, by way of outsourcing. The high investment in education the country has made with 14 universities, resulting in Sri Lanka having the highest per head literacy rate in the region takes the credit for this escalation of export of services.

With a history of nearly 500 years of foreign domination by three major western powers, the Sri Lankans are exposed to western standards in professional services, and we are ahead of India in this respect. Sri Lankan talents and professional standards are recognised by advanced nations and the trained Sri Lankan professionals transfer skills to overseas centres.

The property boom in Western Asia and the modernisation of Asian cities and metropolises, creates opportunities for our construction service providers to export services. They can bid for construction work in India, Qatar, Dubai and Arabia.

According to sources at the Ministry of Construction and Engineering Services enquiries are being made for a Sri Lankan construction firms. The Export Development Board is actively involved to formulate promotional activities for service exports.

Rapid advances in information technology and spread of cyber shops in towns thereby increasing digital communication. The new micro or cyber trading practices enable local service providers in the export of services and strengthen this sector.

The need to strengthen the sector is urgent. Unfortunately, we still rely on outdated conventional libraries for IT and delay investment on digital trading capabilities, these being major drawbacks in our planning.

We still hold on foreign trade promotion practices rather than searching for inward opportunities in talents available in major sectors. We have to look inward to top our pool of expertise in service sectors.

- Bandula Nonis