Rendezvous

Good times ahead for Lanka

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

With the dawn of peace the Sri Lankan motor spare part manufacturing industry will receive a tremendous boost. The local small time manufacturers of seats, radiators and other spare parts will have openings to export to Southern parts of India.

It only takes less then two days to ship a product manufactured in Sri Lanka to Chennai while a product manufactured in Mumbai takes a longer time to reach the Southern part. In addition, there are interstate taxes in India which makes Sri Lankan products cheaper than the Indian products. One of the main reasons for this is the FTA signed between the two countries.

Managing Director Associated Motorways Tilak De Zoysa Pictures by Sumanachandra Ariyawansa

"Due to this, locally manufactured CEAT tyres will be cheaper than the Indian manufactured ones," Managing Director Associated Motorways, Tilak De Zoysa said. He said with additional demand from India, local manufacturers will be able to re-invest in machinery and will be able to give a superior product at a lower price.

This also went into the company when they decided to put up the Maruti car assembling plant in Hambantota, Zoysa said. Having being in the company for more than 30 years he says that he has gained a lot of experience which enabled him to hold many advisory positions in the Government.

He was also attached to the Sisil refrigerator section and later took to planting for eight years. The JASTECA scholarships which he underwent in Japan too was a tower of strength to his success.

AMW is the largest and oldest automobile conglomerate in Colombo with a very wide product portfolio representing Nissan, Yamaha, Goodyear, BP and are the sole distributor for Suzuki motor vehicles.

Q: What progress has been made in the Maruti assembling plant?

Things are progressing slowly. We will assemble Maruti 800 and the Alto models here. The new partners of AMW too are keen on this project. We hope to increase local value addition and instal more and more local products. We hope to market the locally assembled Maruti at less than 20 per cent of the preset cost. Our final intention is to export the cars to India which once again will be cheaper than the Indian manufactured Maruti cars.

Q: How is the motor bike segment doing?

Once again it is being dominated by the Indian machines with over 95 per cent sales in the brand new segment. Bajaj, Hero Honda and TVS top the list.

Q: How do you see the global motor industry?

The global economic crisis is having a negative impact in this industry as well. Worldwide there is a 25 per cent drop and this has also reflected in Sri Lanka as well. For us the first quarter had impressive results while the second quarter was not too good.

Q: How did the merger with your Dubai Based Al-Futtaim start?

It was arranged by a Sri Lankan based in Australia. He has successfully done several such mergers. Al-Futtaim has a fine unblemished record in Dubai holding one fourth of the Toyota monthly sales of 10,000 every month.

The company also bought over the giant Robinson shopping malls in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Q: Why did AMW decide to de-list shares?

In Dubai our partner does not believe in a listing and they go 'private'.Since 97 per cent is acquired by them we too thought to de list shares.

Q: Being a traditional company are you happy with the decision?

Yes as far as we are concerned, it is business as usual for us as it was a friendly acquisition. There were no retrenching of staff and all the scheduled projects will go ahead. They are not here for short term gain. In fact these foreign investors want to expand the building project we signed up with John Keells.

The investors have studied the economic trends of the neighbouring countries and like the investor climate here. The investors also believe that the war is not here to stay as it can't go on forever. They believe that the best times of the country are in the future.

Q: How do you see the local infrastructure?

As soon as the road and highway network is in place the country's infrastructure will fall into place automatically. This was the secret of Malaysia and India is following this example.

Q: What do you think of the ethnic problem?

Well it's up to the politicians to handle.

Q: Where would you like to spend a holiday?

I do not have any particular place. As long as I am with the family the venue is not important. I also think that staff is my life and blood and have launched many CSR projects for them and to the country. This was the reason we were highly rated in the CSR awards presentations. I prefer England since I have a lot of my relations and friends there.