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by L. S. A. Wedaarachchi

Sri Lanka has enormous opportunities to export business and professional services such as legal services, architectural and related services, traditional medical services, tourism, environment related services and in many other areas.

The National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka (NCE) commenced a well planned one-year project last year to create awareness and to build capacity among trade support institutions (TSI's) Chambers of Commerce and Trade Associations for the promotion of exports of business and professional services. Under this project preliminary workshops were conducted in Colombo, Kandy and Galle.

A follow up program of this project commenced last Monday in Colombo with a half day workshop conducted by a well-known consultant Doreen Conrad from the International Trade Centre (ITC) in Geneva, Switzerland funded by the Asia Trust Fund (ATF). The workshop will be followed by further consultations for two weeks with officials of the International Trade Centre (ITC) in Geneva, Chambers of Commerce and trade associations culminating in a half-day trainers' training workshop.

The ITC offers a comprehensive program for the TSI's chambers and trade associations who wish to offer new services to their members. They are encouraged to use the training materials provided by the ITC and introduce their members to important basic competencies that are required in the exporting of services.

To achieve this objective they need to learn some key concepts about marketing their services, networking skills, establishing credibility, leveraging contacts, relationship marketing and other related aspects.

Trade in services is growing exponentially in the international market place.

In this context there are many opportunities for developing countries because even the small, medium enterprises can export their services, such as Accounting, Engineering, Education and Training, Information Technology, Designing, marketing and management consulting, repair and maintenance.

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