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| Sunday, 8 August 2004 |
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Fifteen percent growth forecast by Elmo Leonard The country's exports had achieved an average growth rate of 13.9 percent during the first quarter of this year, Chairman, Export Development Board (EDB) Ratna Sivaratnam said last week. With the five- year national strategy plan for exports now being completed, a forecast has been made of an average growth rate of 15 percent for the next few years, Sivaratnam said at the 25th anniversary of the EDB. Since the EDB was set up in 1979 the country had experienced an average growth in exports of 13.9 percent, he said. Other speakers made out that the vision and design for the EDB to increase exports was drafted by former Minister of Trade Lalith Athulathmudali. Depending on the success of the EDB offices set up in Chennai, the EDB will set up offices in other cities in India and the Middle East, Sivaratnam said. The speaker said that the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement was a significant step in the context of Indo-Sri Lanka trade. The Sri Lanka trade centre was set up in February in Chennai with the objective of maximising the wide range of opportunities offered through this agreement. With it, a selected range of products targeted at the middle and upper segments of the Indian market is being perused. It also opens a window of opportunity for the manufacture and exporter to showcase their products. In the past few years the country's exports have had to contend with adverse conditions on several fronts. Intense competition had even resulted in some sectors loosing their foothold in the international market. The EDB had kept abreast with changing conditions in the global market, formulating its strategies in order to deliver effective solutions to the export community, Sivaratnam said. The government in place today has refocused on economic development based on the SME sector. The EDB believes this opportunity to be an excellent one for developing backward integration and thereby establishing supply sources for products in demand in the international markets Sivaratnam said. The EDB chairman believed that supplies had been one of the greatest setbacks for Sri Lanka's exports, other drawbacks being flexibility of labour, procedural and regularity impediments, cost of finance and cost of transportation to the exporter and also to the farmer. The EDB has undertaken `Export Production Village Programes' together with the private sector, being a typical example where local raw material, rural human resources and skill are being harnessed for export development through backward integration, Sivaratnam said. Over the years Sri Lanka has gradually lost the comparative advantage it enjoyed in the South Asian region owing to the liberalisation of the ecomonies of competing countries in the region. Thus, the strategic focus today is to move from comparative to the competitive advantage, the EDB chairman said. The value-addition and branding of the Ceylon Sapphire as Sriya and Crepe Rubber as Lakaprene, being good examples of how the EDB is using a national brand strategy as a means of expanding markets through the development of the country's comparative advantage. The EDB took pride that today, e-commerce is revolutionising the marketplace and a new business paradigm has evolved. The EDB is one of the first organisation in the country to introduce this new business paradigm and also a range of e-business services as a means of developing and expanding market opportunities. Today, through a network of regional centres these services are being made available to the rural entrepreneur, EDB chairman said. |
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