WTC to be ‘full’ soon
Anjana Samarasinghe
Sri Lanka’s premier business hub and office complex, the World Trade
Centre (WTC) will be 100 per cent occupied within the next couple of
years in housing major companies in the country.
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World Trade
Centre Colombo |
Chief Operations Officer of Overseas Realty (Ceylon) PLC Remaz Ghouse
said at the moment they maintain an 85 per cent occupancy rate housing
major offices in the country. “We are confident that we would achieve a
100 per cent occupancy rate within a couple of years,” he said.
He was speaking at a press conference, which was held last week to
announce the company’ s partnerships with IFS for implementing ERP
system for facilitating their operations in Sri Lanka.
“Last year we had our highest occupancy rate which was 95 per cent.
Even in this economic situation we were able to maintain 85 per cent
occupancy rate selling 750,000 square feet for commercial and retail
purposes.
There is always demand for office space in the Colombo area and we
are confident that things will be positive in the near future,” he said.
The current value of the WTC has risen to US$ 500 million. The WTC
commenced its commercial operations in 1997 and it is one of the 290
WTCs worldwide.
“We maintain a close relationship with other WTCs in the world and
maintain international standards in our operations in Sri Lanka. We have
adopted latest technologies for ensuring security of the premises,” he
said.
“Our Havelock City project consists of residential apartments, hotels
and a shopping complex.
However if there is a demand for office space even at the Havelock
city project we are geared up to meet those demands too”, he said.
“Despite the current economic situation we were able to sell out 60 per
cent out of the 226 luxury apartments at the fist phase of the Havelock
City project. Most of the buyers are Sri Lankans and we have noticed a
few foreigners as well,” he said.
Chief Executive Officer of Overseas Realty (Ceylon) PLC W.D. Barnabas
said the implementation of ERP is also to ensure they are geared up to
meet the challenges of managing Havelock City as efficiently as have
been managing WTC and to improve further. “This will also enable us to
position ourselves for future expansion,” he said.
“The ERP system would enable the Group to amalgamate and centralise
some of its core functions such as finance, facilities, building
management, in order to improve cost and process efficiencies.
After careful evaluation process we selected IFS for our ERP
implementation,” he said.
Vice President IFS South Asia Jayantha De Silva said it is a prestige
for IFS to implement an ERP system for company like Overseas Reality.
“More than 60 per cent of the IFS applications are developed in Sri
Lanka. The ERP system will facilitate integration, efficiency and
corporate governance of the company. It will also reduce operational
cost of the company”, he said. |