‘Political stability vital to achieve economic goals’

By Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

The business community is confident that the prevailing economic and political stability will pave the way for the fast developing nation to become the Wonder of Asia.

‘Momentum’, a synchronised business and professional forum was held simultaneously at the Cinnamon Lakeside, Cinnamon Grand, Hotel Galadari and Hilton Colombo Residences recently.

Key business leaders addressed the forum.

Chevron Lubricants, Managing Director Kishu Gomes said, “We have achieved our own levels of success. We have our own backgrounds, we have different aspirations in life but we have one goal, one objective - to create a better future for ourselves, for our people and for the country.”

“With that objective in mind when we engage ourselves in different activities day-in and day-out. We need to make sure that we do things right,” he said.

“In terms of what we want as professionals, we need that enabling environment within which we will be focused to achieve success.

For this we need a stable economy. If the economy is not stable we will not achieve our goals,” Gomes said. “We need a macro-level environment policy. The economy was very resilient and has been recording 6% growth during the period of terrorism. But today, growth was hovering around 8%.

We need to expand business and think beyond the boundaries of Sri Lanka to drive the country’s economic growth,” he said.

Cargills Deputy Chairman Ranjith Page said the private sector has a major role to play in the country’s forward march.

It was private sector companies such as Nissan, Toyota, Panasonic and Sony that helped to rebuild Japan after the Second World War and in Sri Lanka too the private sector should play a bigger role to develop the country.He recalled that he got actively involved in 1983, with Cargills and at that time they were primarily concentrating on a buying and selling business where most of the profits went overseas.

“But after seeing the dedication and sacrifices made by boys and girls, mothers and fathers to fight terrorism,

I thought I too should give something back to Sri Lanka,” he said.Page said that with this in mind he expanded Cargills and helped rural families by buying directly from them.

He said that in 1999 he only had 11 Cargills outlets and one Kentucky outlet but today they have expanded all over Sri Lanka.

Page said he invested heavily in Cargills during the height of terrorism as he felt that he needs to give something back to Sri Lanka. “One should never forget how peace was achieved,” Page said.

Chairman, Jetwing Group, Hiran Cooray said, “The country’s tourism industry battled on despite all obstacles and we did not give up tourism. It is a miracle that tourism survived until 2009.”

“We survived due to many reasons. Different governments gave us support and soft loans to survive, the tour operators helped by continuously bringing in tourists to Sri Lanka despite bad travel advisories,” he said.

The tour operators did not take Sri Lanka out of their tourism destination map.

“The other reason why we survived was due to our friendly people. Tourists came to Sri Lanka for the warmth and hospitality that we extend.

Our marketing mix and customer base has changed,” Cooray said.

“Earlier we were relying mainly on Western Europe. Our global relations are continuously improving. Various tour operators and airlines are coming here.

It is important for us that air connectivity continues to improve.

The selling options have also changed,” he said. Today, social media plays a big role in tourism marketing and destination branding.

There are also independent travel writers. They write their own analysis on why Sri Lanka is becoming one of the best places in the world to invest in.

There is much potential in cruise tourism. Thousands of people come and they flock to a destination for a day or two. However, the most important aspect is safety and stability of the destination, Cooray said.

MAS Holdings, Group Director Dian Gomes said that peace has brought about a paradigm change for business and the people and this benefit must be protected and harnessed further.“We face a challenge in retaining talent.

There is so much opportunity here now. The Government allows us to do what we are good at.

The private sector needs to take the lead. For this we need a stable economy and consistent policies,” he said.

Calling on the private sector to put their “shoulders to the wheel,” Gomes recounted the effort made by his company to build a cancer hospital in Jaffna.

“This should not be a vote for yourself but for your children,” he said. Admitting the private sector needs to address significant productivity issues and other bottlenecks, Gomes said there were points where the business community did not wholeheartedly agree with the Government policy.

Yet space should be created for engagement rather than change.

“This Government does good things. We must put pressure on them for a better Sri Lanka,” he said.

“After the end of terrorism we went to the north, we could have picked any place in the south.

We could have gone to Bangladesh or Indonesia but we chose to go north for the sake of the people, Gomes said.

“Today, we have about 1,600 employees there, but for me, the great reward is taking sports to the north. We will have achieved true reconciliation when we send a former child soldier to the Olympics – that is my dream,” he said.

“We have to face challenges. When we lost GSP plus I cursed because I lost 8% of my business. But I told my employees, ‘We will not give in. We will find ways to recover from this and move forward,’ and that is exactly what we did,” Gomes said.