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| Sunday, 16 May 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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SME federation extends services The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) in pursuance of its vision "To be leading source of services and assistance to the business community country wide" established the Federation of Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises of Sri Lanka (FASME). The Federation comprises Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises in 15 districts in Sri Lanka at present. This Federation is an affiliated body of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka where a separate unit monitors the activities of SMEs regularly. Recently the Federation of Associations of SME held their annual general meeting where the newly elected office bearers and 15 districts representatives for year 2004. FASME has plans to expand its services to the districts of Monaragala, Baduula and Ampara. To assist SMEs in developing trade opportunities, through information technology, NCCSL launched a web portal for SMEs. Under this SME Web Portal every Districts Association of SME is given its own web page and even SME members have his/her own web page with their company profiles and details of products for sale along with visuals. This web portal eventually will be equipped with a payment gateway facility. NCCSL has established trade information centers in five districts namely Matara, Anuradhapura, Puttalam, Ratnapura and Matale and would be spread out to other districts in the future. These centers assist the Members of Districts Associations of SMEs to further develop their trade opportunities. These five centers have connectivity to the NCCSL Head Office, which too have been upgraded to provide speedy services by the provision of leased line, LAN and servers. NCCSL recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Sri Lanka Export Development Board with the key objective of introducing modern trading practices and information technology to rural areas. As at present the EDB operates six regional e-commerce centers. Moreover Sri Lanka Industrial Development Board and the National Chamber are having discussions on developing closer relationships with each other to further assist the SME sector in Sri Lanka. |
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