Meeting 50% target of world trade of service exports by 2020

Fifty percent of the world's trading would comprise the trading of services by year 2020. It is time Sri Lanka too sought ways and means to face this situation where there are tremendous capabilities and resources available for service trading, said Staff Assistant Sri Lanka Export Development Board Bandula Nonis.

He said "Sri Lanka is now emerging as an independent State from the yoke of colonialism. Its heavy investment in free education since independence has brought dividends where there are professionals and services available in abundance who can compete with any international standards. With the opening of the economy in 1977 the island State has brought local professionals compatible to find service markets overseas.

Sri Lanka has significant potential to increase its service exports, earn foreign exchange, provide employment to skilled workers and explore means and ways to check the brain drain. Sri Lanka too cannot afford to lose its professionals in the future.

Sri Lankan firms do export professional services and the capacity of the representative associations and the government bodies have to assist to form a national market.

Nonis said in recent times we have been actively involved in the development and promotion of goods and services from Sri Lanka to the international market. More recently the integration of telecommunications and computer technology has made virtually all services painlessly tradeable across the borders.

As a result of revolutionised ICT, fading geographical boundaries of markets, falling trade barriers and rising people's mobility, the international market is undergoing a paradigm shift.

In many countries policy-makers see a powerful and important link between knowledge based business and economic growth. Knowledge based industries are constantly generating a high demand for high skilled competent professionals and rely on brain-power rather than muscle-power. In this context the opportunities for export of service are tremendous.

The identified priority areas on professional services in Sri Lanka are:- Engineering, Accounting, Legal, Architecture, Ayurvedic and ICT.

In this process, the UK and the UAE markets, remain attractive to service exporters from Sri Lanka, he said.

Since the European market has regulatory restrictions, the UAE market from the Asian region has potential for export of services. Sri Lanka and the UAE have many similarities between areas such as legal, education systems, civil services and administration.

He said the opportunities are there to promote Sri Lanka's interest in the UAE because of the connections with domestic servants employment segments, adding that Sri Lanka is not seen as a potential supplier of professional service to tap the off-shore market to the UAE.

According to data from the Foreign Employment Bureau the number of Sri Lankan nationals in the year ended 2004 was 148,000 of which majority are domestic aides.

Since the Arabian nationals are less involved in tourism, the promotion of Ayurvedic services is unknown, he said.