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| Sunday, 16 May 2004 |
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Local industry will meet challenge The Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI) welcomes the Governments decision to source the textile requirement for school uniforms from local industrialists. This will boost the local textile industry which was in a state of collapse. Chairman of CNCI Ranjith Hettiarachchy said: "We are confident that the local industry will meet this challenge and display its capability of delivering quality material as per the required time schedule. The total annual requirement is nine million meters of textiles. In the event the local industrialists are not in a position to provide the total requirement the balance will be imported. "The main suppliers are NIDS fabric, Clistex, Sigiri textiles, Vanguard Industries, Cyntex and Kabool. At present Kabool Lanka is not functioning. "Our Chamber always believes that any government must have the courage and ambition to take decisions promptly. In addition, we always request our leaders to take decisions, even unpopular ones, at the beginning so that society will appreciate the decision when they reap the benefits' the Chairman said. We wish to remind the present government, of the importance of re- structuring the holiday patterns in Sri Lanka. Any person with a business sense will understand the negative aspects or intermittent holidays on productivity. We in Sri Lanka enjoy the luxury of more than 25 days of public holidays, along with the 104 days of weekends we enjoy 129 days of holidays, about 35% of the year. "Our chamber understands fully the sensitive nature of the Holiday issue in Sri Lanka. As such, initially we have suggested two long stretches of holidays be introduced, one in April to coincide with the Sinhalese / Tamil New Year and another stretch in December to coincide with Christmas and New Year. As these two periods coincide with the present school holidays it will definitely help to improve our family bonds. In addition, this will create enormous business activities such as pilgrimage, leisure travel and a host of other business activities. As a trial we propose the above suggestion to be introduced to the private sector employees by utilizing their present entitlements. This can be introduced with the blessing of all trade unions, Chambers and employers federation. The next urgent issue we wish to bring to the notice of the new government is the allocation of land for Industrial expansion. Government must encourage industrialists to expand by allocating land on long lease in areas with required infrastructure facilities. Such expansion would eventually help to spread the Industrial enterprises away from the metropolis and suburbs. This will also ease the road traffic which is also a major factor affecting productivity. "We hope the government will act fast and take immediate steps to rectify, the above critical issues that will definitely help Sir Lanka's march towards economic prosperity" Hettiarachchy said. |
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