Lankan exports can be increased

"Sri Lanka has more potential to increase exports by a healthy margin if the country focus on its local strengths and have a national plan based on a short, medium and long term strategy," said President elect of National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) and Managing Director of HVA Lanka Exports (Pvt) Ltd Rohan Fernando.

"The potential in our indigenous products like agriculture, Spices, Gems and Jewellery, Marine, Mining, and ceramic are not fully realised due to lack of long term direction."

Delivering the acceptance speech he said that Sri Lanka economy is one of the smallest and as a result a very resilient in the world.

Despite the prolonged military action, the economy has grown by an impressive 7% during 2007. "The 2005Tsunami debacle that devastated a major portion of our coastal belt and the recovery is a case in point of our resilience. This shows the real strength in us to revert back from a total debacle within a short period. The total exports of our nation are around 800 billion Rupees or 7.5 billion USD, which is not huge by world standards. Some of the large international conglomerates rake up similar turn over."

"Tea sector was prepared for the long term strategy based on Branding as opposed to the false comfort in relying only on value addition. Value addition in a broad sense is not conducive for a long term stable economy where as branding is. The tea sector under the NCE recognised this important factor and prepared a strategy paper which is the document used by the Tea exporters association of Sri Lanka in their forward march.

Some of the suggestions have been seriously considered by the past and present governments and are being activated, though not to the level of obtaining full results." The Gem and Jewellery sector has vast potential to become a multi billion-dollar export industry, if the politicisation and bureaucracy is managed to focus on the bigger picture.

"NCE membership companies of 280 billion Rupees or 2.6 billion USD to the economy, which is about 40% of the total export earnings of our country. The employment figures are not updated, but estimated to be in the region of half a million direct and indirect employees."

"As exporters, we can play that pivotal role and we call upon the government to take us into their confidence by regularly discussing the economic issues, without springing surprise by way of unproductive tax barriers on the sole advice of the bureaucrats. There need to be a pro-active development plan for districts outside the western province.

Regional politics have blocked many a project from taking shape outside the Colombo district. This the very reason why the economic development has not trickled down to the villages as expected by the government."

"Today to get a project established, you need to have approvals from the Pradeshiya Saba, Provincial government authorities, Regional land committees, District secretaries and a host of other governing authorities. To make it worse, a string of NGO's backed by interested foreign funds block many a project on environmental concerns."

"It is my vision to mobilise the power within NCE to create a positive impact in the business community by harnessing the potential we possess to translate into real term exports. The model we followed for the tea exports will be used in preparing the strategy for other sectors after consulting the sectoral heads. I take this opportunity to solicit the support of all our members in achieving this task for the greater good of our business and our country," he said.

Office bearers of National Chamber of Exporters

President: Rohan Fernando, Outgoing President. Kulatunga Rajapaksa, The Council of the Chamber for the year 2008. Patrick Amaraisnghe - President Emeritus, Rohan Fernando - President, Kulatunga Rajapaksa - Immediate Past President, Felix Yahampath - Past President, Kingsley Bernard - Past President, Mohan Perera - Vice President, Sarath de Silva - Vice President, Saman Gunasekara -Secretary, Harish Guruge - Hony. Treasurer, Neil Fernando - Neil Fernando and Co, Ashroff Razack - M.A.M. Abdul Cader & Co. Pte Ltd, Roger Ratnayake - Samudra Aquarist Fishgate (Pvt) Ltd, Seneka D Amarasinghe - Amico Exports (Pvt) Ltd, Graetian Gunawardhana - Hands International (Pvt) Ltd, Jayantha Karunaratne - Imperial Tea Exports (Pvt) Ltd, M. Sarada De Silva - Intercom Ltd, Jude Rubera - Ceylon Biscuits Ltd, Ravi Jayawardena - Golden Palm Crafts (Pvt) Ltd, Jagath Peiris - Royal Fernwood Porcelain Ltd, Sanath T Manuwendra - Greenet Flowers and Plant (Pvt) Ltd, Avindra De Silva - Unilever Ceylon Ltd (Tea Division), Keerthi Peiris - Maliban Biscuit Manufactories (Pvt) Ltd, Anura Eliyapura - Raja Jewellers (Pvt) Ltd, Ramal Jasinghe - Asian Alliance Insurance Co. Ltd, Niral Kadawatharachchi - Freight Links International (Pvt) Ltd, Tisil Cooray - I.E. International (Pvt) Ltd, K. Shakthi Daasan - Link Natural Products (Pvt) Ltd, Mangala P. B. Yapa - Colombo Dockyard PLC, Modestus Karunaratne - Gospel House Handicrafts Ltd and Sarath Wickramarachchi - Multichemi Exports (Pvt) Ltd.