Perspective

Sri Lankan products as good as the best

Geoff Wijesinghe

The open economy introduced in 1977 opened the floodgates for all manner of foreign products to be imported without any restrictions.

While a fair volume of the new imports were of high standard, there were a large volume of inferior quality imported at very low cost, but sold to local consumers at very high unconscionable profit.

This was also a result of local industrialists abusing the monopoly they held during a period of restricted imports by producing goods of inferior quality. Take it or lump it was their attitude towards the hapless consumer.

The advent of the open economy put paid to all this and knocked many a Lankan industrialist for six.

Today, things are different. Industrialists have learnt their lessons. A large number of locally manufactured products meet the highest international standards and have growing export markets.

While an effective, strict standards enforcement machinery must be put in place for both local and foreign products, the import of a large number of now obsolete items where supply could meet demand, should be discouraged through high Customers tariffs. This would serve towards righting the imbalance between imports and exports. The Government has already banned the import of certain categories of used vehicles, which pollute the environment and endanger the life and limb of other road users and pedestrians.

The post-1977 canard spread by some anti national lobbies that coconut oil caused cholesterol has been nailed, fairly and squarely through research carried out by several universities, both here and abroad and by our Coconut Research Institute. It has been proved beyond doubt that coconut oil is not harmful to our bodies. Much to the contrary, it converts bad cholesterol into good. The truth, as always, has finally prevailed and coconut oil is fast regaining its place in our urban kitchens. As for the villages, they right throughout continue using coconut oil.

A recent survey made by an international research organisation reveals that deaths through heart attacks more than doubled in urban areas after the scaremongering campaign against coconut oil, while the villages were unaffected.