Chamber of Commerce to focus on three key areas

Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka will be working towards focusing on three key areas of skills development, improving trade and investment in the Asian Region, and promoting sustainable development. The importance of skills development, trade and investment, sustainable development and business excellence are even more critical to sustain the GDP growth rate of 8% for the year 2012, the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka President Asoka Hettigoda said at the 53rd Annual General Meeting held last week in Colombo.

With two consecutive years of high GDP growth of over 8% in 2010 and 2011, Sri Lanka has shown the world its capacity and strength to become a middle income nation faster than expected. Tourism, agriculture, fisheries, transport, banking, manufacturing, and construction sectors recorded higher growth rates during 2011. Single digit inflation, low interest rates and improving customer demand have certainly helped these growth rates, he said.

The importance of skills development in a globalized economy is a well known fact as increasingly organisations emphasize competence development and lifelong learning. The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) proposes to set up a 180-seat fully equipped auditorium to conduct skills development and training programs and to make the Chamber the centre of excellence. This will be the biggest development that the Chamber would have undertaken since setting up office at D.R. Wijewardene Mawatha in 1995.

With two largest populated nations in our region, we will continue to focus more on trading with Asia while creating more business councils with Asian countries.

To support SME development and investment, NCCSL will lobby the banking sector to improve long-term low cost lending to SMEs and traditional and non-traditional exporters who add value. We as a nation, have to be competitive and sustainable while exhibiting excellence in all business activities we do as it is essential for the survival in today's globalised environment.

Certain countries have introduced a carbon tax on merchandise with high carbon levels and products coming from countries that refuse to contribute to reducing greenhouse gases. Further, the use of certain chemical pesticides and fertilizers and poor labour conditions, are factors considered by certain countries in controlling imports.

We target to generate more export revenue where sustainable and excellent development practices will give us the competitive advantage. This year, NCCSL will focus on green building strategies and carbon neutral practices and hope to form a separate committee to focus on organic farming.

The business excellence awards will promote to make our business community competitive, productive, sustainable, and play a key role in equitable development of Sri Lanka working with all the stakeholders.

However, lower growth rates in our trading partners such as US and EU, unrest in Arab countries, rising labour costs and other internal and external factors present us a challenging year ahead, Hettigoda said. The NCCSL became the first Chamber in Sri Lanka to be certified as "Carbon Neutral".