Kelani Cables to increase exports by 15 %

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

Kelani Cables is looking at a record revenue in the excess of Rs. 5 billion at the end of the financial year. This would be an increase of more than 25 % from the last financial year. CEO Kelani Cables, Mahinda Saranapala said that they would increase foreign exports by over 15 % and this is the main reason for the increase of revenue.

Mahinda Saranapala

The first shipment received in Australia Pictures by Saliya Rupasinghe

He said that Kelani Cables became the first Sri Lanka company to export wires to the Australian domestic market and now they plan to explore the New Zealand market as well. “We received a Special Quality Certificate from Australia which would also allow us to export to New Zealand,” he said. Saranapala said that the first container was exported to Australia last week to their Australian agent, Custom Electricals. He said that the factory had to adapt to several ‘new styles’ to meet the Australian standed which included a flat wire and special plastic coating. “The factory had to do only a marginal investment for this.”

The Australian market was penetrated through a local engineer domiciled in Australia. Kelani Cables products are already being exported to Japan, South Africa, India, Maldives, and Bangladesh which is the largest market for them. “The revenue from these markets was 15 % of the total turn over of Rs. 4.34 billion last year.” “Our company profit before tax meanwhile, increased by 80 % during the year, to Rs. 402 million. With this strong growth, the group secured an impressive bottom line growth of 113 % of Rs. 284.8 million during the financial year.

“We strengthened our presence in the North and East of the country by increasing the number of our agents in these areas and by adding 500 new outlets in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Kilinochchi, Jaffa and Pudukuduirippu.”

“We have built a new state-of-the-art warehouse in our premises at Kelaniya. During the day we use skylight to reduce and save energy. Invested in a new boom truck to improve cable drum handling and to handling reduce costs.”

He said that due to low quality exports by some manufactures the high reputation Sri Lanka has earned is now in jeopardy. “These low quality cables and wires are also a health and safety hazard for end users due to their poor insulation capacity. We are deeply concerned to note that such low quality, dangerous goods are gaining market share on the basis of significantly lower prices, endangering life and property in the country.

Therefore, we urge the relevant authorities to enforce the SLSI quality standards within the local cable and wire manufacturing industry, as a matter of priority and public safety.”

He also said that last year over 89 people died due to burn injuries in a Calcutta hospital and investigations had revealed that it was due to a fire originated by low quality wire.