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| Sunday, 12 October 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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First local car plant launched at Polgahawela by Chanuka Mannapperuma Micro Cars, Sri Lanka's first car manufacturing plant, was launched recently at the Polgahawela Export Processing zone. The car, designed, developed and prototyped locally, comes in nine colours with red, yellow, blue and green being the outstanding ones. The Micro is an aerodynamically designed ultra-light modern city car, with seating for five. It is simple, yet has a technologically advanced RTM composite body. The car is designed and built not only for local roads and tastes, but also complies with international standards. With an 800cc/5-speed, 4-stroke, 4-cylinder environmentally friendly engine, it is suitable for unleaded fuel and offers excellent fuel economy. The company started the project in 1999, but faced the problem of finding a suitable block of land to establish the manufacturing facility. "We were promised a land in Matugama, but this never materialised. Subsequently, I made an appeal to the BOI Chairman of the North Western Province, Dr Lalith Kotelawala, who immediately allocated a 3 1/2 acre block of land," said Chairman Micro Car Ltd, Dr Lawrence Perera. Minister of Enterprise Development, Industrial Policy and Investment Promotion Professor G.L. Peiris said the country, which was on a negative economic growth path during the past few years, is on the path to recovery and is making steady progress. The economy is forecast to achieve a growth of six per cent by the end of the year. The main reason attributed for all this is the peace process. The Minister said that the project has provided 300 jobs while plans are underway to increase this to 3000 by mid-2004. "We are able to produce around 30 cars per month. This is not sufficient to meet the demand which is around 300 cars". He said this is his own creation and that they have received orders from Egypt, Brunei, Bangladesh and Italy. The Micro project will provide over 4,000 direct employment opportunities and more than 8,000 jobs indirectly with self-employment potential for over 35,000. Speaking of future plans, Dr Perera said he is planning to introduce a 100 per cent Sri Lankan-made motor cycle in the future. |
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