High potential for Sri Lanka to improve trade with Germany

At a recently concluded seminar on 'Bilateral trade opportunities between Sri Lanka and Germany' organized by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) the Ambassador to Federal Republic of Germany Jens Ploetner said Sri Lanka has a high potential to improve trade with Germany if its strengths and weaknesses are properly addressed.

With regard to bilateral trade, Sri Lanka could offer products such as garments, ayurveda products, tea, rubber and tourism to the German market. However, the total trade volumes have been stagnant and are in favour of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has high potential to become the transport hub in South Asia as identified by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Strategic geographic location, very high biodiversity, hospitality, prevailing peace and strong culture backed by Buddhist values are some of the strengths that Sri Lanka possess and can be considered as rare advantages in this region.

Since Germans have a very positive perception of Sri Lanka, the business community should use it to capitalize on improving trade with Germany. "You must build your own image by adopting good labour relations all of which are favourable factors for German people to do business," he told the business community.

However, discipline, punctuality and reliability will play a vital role if Sri Lankan businesses want to effectively trade with Germany.

Sri Lankan products will have a good market in Germany if the products and services supplied are reliable and of high quality standard. German consumers would accept such products and would be willing to pay high prices.

With regard to the tourism, many hoteliers think that now is the payback period and charge very high prices which will compel German tourists to go elsewhere.

Therefore, it is of paramount importance that hotels are made competitive on both price and quality.

Therefore, improving quality of products and services with Sri Lankan brands will play an important role in improving business between Sri Lanka and Germany, he further said. The National Chamber President Asoka Hettigoda said the chamber is engaged in developing the business sector with special emphasis to the local Small and Medium Enterprise Sector. He said, "Although the trade balance between Sri Lanka and Germany is in favour of Sri Lanka we should improve quality of products and services so that we could increase the trade volume between the two countries as Germany is the largest economy and the fastest growing economy in the European Union."