Sunday Observer
Seylan Merchant Bank
Sunday, 3 July 2005    
The widest coverage in Sri Lanka.
Business
News

Business

Features

Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Oomph! - Sunday Observer Magazine

Junior Observer



Archives

Mihintalava - The Birthplace of Sri Lankan Buddhist Civilization

Silumina  on-line Edition

Government - Gazette

Daily News

Budusarana On-line Edition


Call to improve shoe industry

by L. S. A. Wedaarachchi

The local shoe market is flooded with foreign shoes and most of the shoes available in the local market are imported from China or Thailand.

The price of shoes has also increased sharply during the last few years.

According to a spokesman for the shoe industry the measures taken by the government a few years ago to discourage the import of shoes by introducing a tax scheme was not successful.

He said that the relevant ministries should act immediately to improve the shoe industry and leather related industries in Sri Lanka. He said that the supply of shoes and slippers at reasonable prices should be given priority.

Shoes are an essential item of the common man and also for school-going children. Therefore the prices should be reasonable for customers. However, the present prices cannot be borne by ordinary customers, he said.

When the Sunday Observer inquired about the present standard of the shoe industry in Sri Lanka, a high official of the Ministry of Rural and Small Industries, said that the shoe industry which had shown remarkable progress under the closed economic policies dropped drastically under the open economic policies introduced in 1977.

"Locally made high quality shoes and leather related items had a high demand in Sri Lanka as well as in the foreign market before the privatisation of the Leather Corporation. The Leather Corporation exported their shoes and other products mainly to Russia and the Socialist countries, he said.

To improve the shoe industry and to supply those at reasonable prices to customers it is essential that the government implements a systematic development program for the shoe industry.

It has been proved during the last few years that the private sector alone cannot meet the big demand for shoes by customers.

The present high prices of shoes are due to the unnecessary high cost of labour, transport, taxes and high scale marketing strategies, he said.

He said that the government implemented the leather and leather related products development villages scheme under the one thousand industrial villages project to face the challenge offered by the existing situation.

The main areas of the village based shoe industry namely training, advanced technology equipment, production process and marketing are met by the leather industrial village project and that project is progressing satisfactorily.

The IDB had already provided training to over one-thousand youth selected from leather product development co-operative villages at village level and at the leather product development centre at Katubedda as in-house advanced training.

At present the raw materials for the shoe industry, mainly finished leather are being imported from India and Pakistan, since the local leather production is not sufficient for the industry.

It is essential to produce finished leather and raw materials in Sri Lanka for the shoe industry in spite of exporting raw leather and importing finished leather.

The Bataata Tannery project which has been languishing for several years due to environmental issues, should be solved, he said.

The spokesman said under the one-thousand industrial villages project eleven villages have been selected as shoes and leather related product development cooperative villages.

The main criterion of selecting those villages as leather product development villages was the longstanding ties with the leather industry with those villages.

Under the industrial villages development project the infrastructure facilities, the equipment for the villages and technical know-how and training facilities will be provided by the Rural and Small Industries Ministry.

www.singersl.com

One Unit Four colour Sheet-fed Offset Printing Machine

http://www.mrrr.lk/(Ministry of Relief Rehabilitation & Reconciliation)

www.Pathmaconstruction.com

www.ceylincoproperties.com

www.peaceinsrilanka.org

www.helpheroes.lk


| News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security |
| Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries | Junior Observer |


Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager


Hosted by Lanka Com Services