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| Sunday, 5 January 2003 |
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Reverse Fair, boon to SMIs Sri Lanka SPX held its first Reverse Fair in Colombo recently. Agro Technica (Pvt) Ltd., Colombo Dockyard (Pvt) Ltd., Lanka Ashok Leyland, Loadstar (Pvt) Ltd., Regnis Lanka Ltd. and Sri Lanka Railways exhibited items that could be outsourced. 'Reverse fair' is a novel concept used by the UNIDO Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (SPX) network where buyers exhibit items, products or spare parts which they are interested in outsourcing or subcontracting. The SPX invites potential subcontractors who are mostly small and medium industries (SMI) to the fair to inspect and discuss with the companies about developing supply partnerships. This is an effective tool used by SPXs for creating partnership opportunities between buyers and sellers within a short time at one location. According to Nihal Cooray, Manager SPX, over 50 companies mainly from the SMI sector visited the fair from different locations of Sri Lanka and have identified over 550 items that they wish to supply to the main contracted companies. According to Andre de Crombrugghe, UNIDO Program Co-ordinator, this is a very good achievement compared to other Reverse Fairs in Europe and Latin America.The Sri Lanka SPX has already started the follow-up work and also will take necessary enabling measures to facilitate partnership building contracts, specially with Sri Lanka Railways where a large number of items are available for SMIs. Nihal Abeysekera, President SPX stated that he is very keen to discuss with the relevant ministries about clearing certain barriers which will pave the way for SMIs to supply and also for the main contractors to develop suitable suppliers. Concurrently with the Reverse Fair, an international seminar was held to promote the SPX concept in Sri Lanka and other countries keen on establishing the UNIDO SPX concept. Officials from Indonesia, China, Thailand and Vietnam participated at this seminar. Since the SPX was launched in Sri Lanka in 2001, it has visited 412 companies and registered 275 companies in the internationally accepted database, which will be linked to 32, countries having 62 exchanges. SPX is also a member of the Indian Network of eight exchanges. Matchmaking, which is one of its most important activities, is now in progress and an increase was seen during the last six months. SPX has decided to work very closely with all task forces, including the SME Task Force and other industrial development programs, which the Ministry of Enterprise Development, Industrial Policy and Investment Promotion has initiated. |
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