ADVERTORIAL

SLT upgrades bandwidth

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) announced an automatic 100 percent bandwidth upgrade for its existing 'Entree' Broadband customers who will now enjoy speeds up to 1 Mbps; and a significant increase of included data for all volume based broadband packages.

Customers who are using the 'Entree' (512 kbps) Broadband Package will now experience downlink speeds doubled up to 1 Mbps with this automatic bandwidth upgrade, and will enjoy an additional 500 MB that amounts to 1.5 GB of total data volume every month with no additional monthly charge. 'Home Plus' (formally known as 'Xcite Plus') package (1 Mbps downlink speed) will be upgraded with not only a usage volume increase to 8GB, But with a 25 percent reduction of the monthly charge to Rs 1,500 from Rs 2,000. Other volume based packages also now include increases of upto 100 percent in the included data: 'Office Plus' (2 Mbps downlink speed now includes 15 GB) and 'Xcel plus' (4 Mbps downlink speed now includes 21 GB).

In addition, for all volume based ADSL broadband packages, SLT has reduced by 30 percent the charge for each additional 1 MB from 50 cents per MB to 35 cents per MB.

All existing SLT broadband customers who are using Entree, Home Plus, Office Plus and Xcel Plus volume based packages will benefit from the free speed boost and increase of data volumes to their internet experience.

These enhancements will be available automatically to broadband users from January 1, 2011 onwards.

SLT CEO Greg Young said, "Sri Lanka's broadband market is rapidly expanding and we are proud to say that SLT continues to drive increasing penetration and access to broadband.

"We have introduced significant improvements for our customers in quality of service, international internet bandwidth and new broadband packages to suit every customer requirement. All our volume based broadband packages are free of bandwidth control and contention, to provide customers with a rich internet experience. These latest initiatives continue to support the Government's ICT development policy and program," he said.

BoC drive to help SL turn Wonder of Asia:

Expatriate remittances encouraged

The international Division of Bank of Ceylon extends the fullest support towards "Sri Lanka, the emerging Wonder of Asia".

As espoused in the Mahinda Chinthanaya, President Mahinda Rajapaksa reiterates the vital role that foreign exchange earnings play in making Sri Lanka the emerging Wonder of Asia" a reality. The country has two major source of foreign exchange namely, export income and remittances from our migrant workforce.

At Bank of Ceylon, we have launched many programmes to facilitate our people who sweat and toil away from their homes and families to contribute enormously to the development of our Motherland, a senior official said.

For these persons, the Non Resident Foreign Currency account we initiated in 1971 has been a very useful product. Our NRFC account holders have many privileges.

A unique feature is the provision of Life Insurance cover at no cost. Under this cover, the amount of compensation is linked to the account balance. Compensation ranging from Rs 100,000 to Rs 1,000,000 can be claimed at the time of death, permanent or temporary disability.

The minimum requirement for eligibility is an account balance of USD 250 or equivalent in a designated foreign currency at least six months prior to the date of the incident. Interest is calculated on a daily basis on NRFC accounts and credited to accounts at the end of each month.

Further, such interest earnings are exempt from income tax. Additionally a bonus interest is paid to the Ran Kekulu Foreign Currency (RKFC) account, which has been designed especially for the children of NRFC account holders.

The Bank facilitates fund transfers from NRFC accounts to any Sri Lanka Rupee account on written request at no extra cost. Account holders can view the transaction details on-line through our Internet Banking facility. Yet another privileged is the opportunity available to any person who is ready to migrate for foreign employment, the facility to open an NRFC account even without the initial deposit. In such cases, the Bank credits USD 5 to the account as a gift on receipt of the first remittance.

As a support service, BOC has stationed 27 representatives in Italy, France, South Korea and almost all countries in the Middle East to assist and provide e-banking services to the Sri Lankan expatries in addition, to our own branches in Maldives and Chennai, BoC London outfit is now a free standing unit registered under the UK FSA that facilitates remittances to BoC accounts free of charge.

The Bank organizes many awareness programmes on banking services and facilities available for migrant employees from time to time.

Pre-departure loan facilities to migrant workers to purchase air tickets and connected expenses are entertained. We also grant housing loans to migrant employees under the Sarani loan scheme. We believe the migrant workforce is an invaluable asset to our country.

While admiring their contribution to the national economy, and their efforts to achieve a better quality in their lifestyle, we consider it our responsibility to promote and develop the savings mindset.

As a tribute to our NRFC account holders, BoC launched the new "BoC NRFC Wasana .

With all these and more, we attempt to strengthen and position the BoC NRFC Account as market leader.

The Bank of Ceylon has achieved the largest market share in NRFC. We will build volume and value further more to notch a landmark of USD 1 billion.

As a premier state institution, we at Bank of Ceylon, true to our ethos as Bankers to the Nation will continue to make our substantial contributions to Sri Lanka's vision of Wonder of Asia.

LMF and Ambewela brand surges ahead

Lanka Milk Foods (CWE) PLC, which markets a number of market leading brands including Ambewela, Daily, Lakspray and My Juicee has been recording an impressive growth in the current year.

The main focus of the organization has been to expand its Ambewela Range of dairy products with as many as four new products being launched within the last year, which has given the brand a sales growth of over 50 percent over the previous year.

The Ambewela brand which has been the undisputed market leader in the UHT Fresh Milk category for a number of years decided to strategically expand its range of products to poise itself to become the leader in the overall dairy business in Sri Lanka.

With this vision, Ambewela entered the non fat milk, yoghurt, flavoured milk and cheese categories, with an impressive entry in each segment and managed to capture significant market shares in each of the categories. LMF Sales General Manager Patrick Wickramasinghe said, the brand has already within an extremely short period of one year managed to become a leading player in each of the segments in their areas of operation.

"We expect to expand our range further in the near future, and have already planned out significant distribution strategies to enter in to the new segments," he said.

LMF is in the process of expanding capacity on products such as yoghurt where there is tremendous demand.

LMF Marketing General Manager Tilan Wijeyesekera stated, "We envisioned a tremendous future potential in the Sri Lankan Dairy industry and invested over a billion rupees on our ultra modern state-of-the-art factory in Ambewela in 2009, which has already started to produce some extraordinary results for the company, and we have also made significant investments on building brand equity for the Ambewela brand, which is fast becoming one of the most valuable FMCG brands in the country."

The uniqueness of Ambewela products is that they source milk exclusively from their own two farms, New Zealand Farm (Pattipola Farm) and Ambewela Farm which are both located in the Ambewela region. These farms are two of the largest in Sri Lanka located 6,000 feet above sea level, and are renowned for having the best grazing grounds in Sri Lanka.

Today these two farms have a herd of over 1,750 pure bread Friesian and Ayrshire cattle, imported from some of the finest stocks around the world.

They also conform to the highest international dairy standards with milk produced without any human touch with ultra modern fully automated milking parlours and high capacity feed mills.

This is in stark contrast to any other mainstream dairy organization in the country which practises milk collection from multiple sources, where quality control could become a significant problem.

As an example the milk from Ambewela has a micro bacterial count as low as 50,000 which is well within international standards whilst the collected field milk in the country has a 2,000,000 micro bacterial count.

Cathay carries Hong Kong's 50 millionth passenger

A Cathay Pacific Airways passenger celebrated Christmas in style after being informed that he was the 50 millionth passenger to arrive at Hong Kong International Airport.

Singaporean Joseph Wong was travelling with his wife and daughter on the CX710 flight from Singapore on December 25 when he was informed that he was the 50 millionth passenger to arrive at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA).

At a ceremony held at the airport on Tuesday, Wong and his family were presented with 50 gifts valued at more than HK $ 190,000 from airport retailers and partners, including three Business Class tickets to any destination on the airline's network.

HKIA also celebrated cargo tonnage exceeding four million tonnes.

The four millionth tonne of cargo was a consignment of electronic products bound for Dubai which departed on December 24. Hong Kong Airport Authority Chairman Dr Marvin Cheung said, "The new traffic records are remarkable achievements, particularly in light of the fact that very few airports worldwide have such high passenger and cargo traffic at the same time. We have come a long way."