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| Sunday, 21 July 2002 |
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CCC Chairman expresses confidence in Chamber's future role "I hope we can one day proudly say that our country is a place where the people, the value system that governs the people and their capabilities for the future are the best in the world." This is the dream of the Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) Chandra Jayaratne. He will be stepping down as the CCC Chairman on July 25 after holding office for two years. Speaking to the Sunday Observer, he said the CCC had been able to build a team of professionals and a vision while achieving implementation effectiveness and improving communication with all stakeholders are yet to be accomplished. Mr Jayaratne is confident that the Chamber will play a significant role in the future in realising the dreams of the private sector to develop and improve the living standards of all Sri Lankans. Recalling the past, he said the Chamber, having understood the path the country was heading, had two options: travel the normal course and get some concessions or really change the rules of the game, think outside the box, become more dynamic and vision-oriented and through that, try to grow the whole economy and thereby grow the economy of the private sector. The latter was the way forward and during the last few years, the CCC had been trying to achieve this. "Prioritising issues and resolving conflicts are necessary to achieve the objectives through core values ie placing the nation first, private sector second, sectoral interests third and individual member interests last." In trying to achieve these objectives, the Chamber has developed professionalism in a number of areas such as the Economic Intelligence Unit, legal reviews, information database, global connectivity through the development gateway, close networking with India to develop free trade and a free trade desk with the Indian counterpart, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). All these were used to develop the two documents given to the two governments of 2000 and 2001. The documents were titled 'The way forward' and 'Growth leveraging the private sector'. "We are glad that the new Government has asked us to be the scorekeeper not only on the decisions of the Chamber, but also on policy decisions of the Government," he added. Another task of the Chamber is benchmarking with the CII. The CII is widely recognised as India's voice of the private sector while the Indian government recognises it as the provider of the way forward and accountability scorekeeper. "I would say that with everything that has begun, the mission of benchmarking the CCC as the professionally run national value adding chamber, can be realised within the next two years," said a confident Mr Jayaratne. "The country is moving towards growth and with peace on the horizon, I am very hopeful of the future, the country, private sector and the Chamber." "I believe in talking about what can be done rather than about what has been done. It is not the beginnings of a person that matters, but what he/she has done and can do to better the society and its people," he said. Jayaratne is qualified both as a Chartered Accountant and a Cost and Management Accountant and is the Managing Director of Eagle Insurance. |
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