Biz-Bud

'Impose a reasonable tax to protect industry':

Sri Lanka can be self-sufficient with Lumala bicycles

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

When someone has a passion towards a business he or she likes to live with it and does not want to leave it despite the challenges. Manufacturing a variety of bicycles is the passion of Managing Director City Cycle Industries M.N. Miflal.

His company as the leading bicycle manufacturer in the country has the capacity to supply bicycles to the whole country apart from his export quota. However, his business has reached a crisis stage and he wonders as to why he started this business.

As a member of Mawbima Lanka Foundation which promotes the use of local products, this is a serious issue.

He was interviewed by Daily News Business.

An old boy of D. S. Senanayake College, Miflal, the third in a family of eight hails from Panadura. His grandfather imported Lumala bicycles from Japan five decades ago and later he was succeeded by his father.

In the latter part, the Japanese Company closed down due to high cost of production and imports came to a halt gradually.

Passion

"I was in the business by this time and had a passion for this field. "I did not want to give it up and pondered why can't we manufacture bicycles in our country.

I travelled to many countries to explore the possibility of bringing the technology but no one liked to give it.

Finally in 1980, I imported machinery from Japan to set up a plant in Panadura. I employed eight people initially and my investment at that time was about Rs. 400,000, he said. His company manufactured only five to six bicycles a day at the beginning but it expanded to 15,000 bicycles a month later. "My father was reluctant to spend on expansion those days but I managed to do it gradually at minimum costs.

Today I have 250,000 square feet buildings for the factory and I can employ another 1,000 people directly and indirectly if I have the market to make our factory fully operational.

Our machinery with the latest technology is worth more than Rs 400 million. We have 270 dealers islandwide and our products are delivered in our own vehicles.

I have the capacity to manufacture 600,000 bicycles but with all these resources I am in a quandary because of imported cheap and used products flooding the local market and people are ignorant about these products.

During the last year Sri Lanka imported 48,613 used bicycles according to customs statistics, he said.

Valuable industry

He called upon the Government to impose a reasonable tax on imported bicycles like it did for tyres some time ago to protect this valuable local industry.

At present Lumala bicycles are exported to 12 countries such as UK, Middle East, Africa, Spain, India and Holland, but as the demand is seasonal he cannot employ

his workers during off season and valuable machines are idle.

A large number of skilled people trained by me have left the country because I could not retain them but this problem can be solved if he has a solid local market, he said.

Saving forex

The war has come to an end and a bicycle is the main transport mode of the people living in the North and East.

It is the poor man's vehicle - it's economical, environment friendly and riding a bicycle is good for health and more than anything else it could save a lot of foreign exchange.

We were awarded the Surya Sinha Award by Mawbima Lanka Foundation and now I have fresh hopes that the authorities will look into this problem positively to protect and develop a local industry, he said.

Another plus point for Lumala is that they use locally manufactured DSI tyres and tubes as well as locally manufactured paints for bicycles.

The few items that are not available in the local market are imported from well recognized high quality brands. Lumala has about a hundred varieties of bicycles and customers get a 10-year warranty for the bicycles.

Miflal's future dream is to make his company fully operational and make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in bicycles.

He is grooming his son Aziz to take the industry to the fourth generation.