Loadstar wins Most Outstanding Exporter for the Year 2006 gold award

by Surekha Galagoda

Loadstar (Pvt) Ltd won the Most Outstanding Exporter for the Year 2006 gold award at the 15th Annual NCE export Awards ceremony held at the Hilton Colombo.

The silver award was won by Colombo Dockyard Ltd. The Best woman exporter gold award was won by Selyn Exporters (Pvt) Ltd while Serendib Exports won the silver award. The award for the best Sri Lankan Brand exporter was won by Imperial Tea Export (Pvt) Ltd Organised by the National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka (NCE) to recognise achievement and excellence, 101 awards were presented in the sectors of Agriculture value added, tea sector bulk, tea sector value added, Industry, garments, services/suppliers to exporters.

In each sector winners in the small, medium, large and extra large exporter category were honoured with gold, silver, bronze medals and certificates.

The chief guest on the occasion was the High Commissioner for Pakistan in Sri Lanka Shahzad A. Chaudhry.

President NCE D. K. Rajapaksa said that although our workers are skilful their productivity does not reflect their capabilities compared to workers in competitor countries in the South Asian region.

Entrepreneurs are unable to boost productivity through incentive based wage structures and therefore may be desirable to amend the wages board regulations to facilitate earnings to be productivity based.

In addition to the prevailing relatively poor infrastructure facilities our exporters have had to face severe setbacks due to restrictions on night flights during a short period and also due to unwarranted work stoppages and security issues at the Colombo Port.

Since June this year freight rates out of Colombo to Europe have increased by US$750 per 20-foot container, which is a 100%, increase.

Unreasonable Terminal Handling Charges are an additional burden. Even at these rates shippers find it difficult to obtain cargo space on ships plying from the Far East to Europe. The problem may aggravate in the coming months, he said.

The situation has arisen because Europe is ordering bigger volumes of goods from China which reflects the strengthening of the Euro against the dollar.

In addition to the market conditions we exporters have been dealt a double blow by the withdrawal or curtailment of some shipping lines, which have been hitherto using Colombo as a major port of call due to delays in berthing and security concerns.

While the Sri Lankan authorities are pondering on port improvements India has gone ahead with heavy investments to build new ports and upgrade existing ports with FDI. Rajapaksa said that the short-term solution for this serious problem is to improve the efficiency of the Colombo Port and upgrade it to a hub port level.

This could be achieved to a great extent if the so-called Colombo South Harbour is fast tracked.

The other approach is to position Colombo as a logistics market with facilities such as EDI, Customs, bonded warehousing, competitive port tariff amending the out-of-date Customs Ordinance and facilitating international freight forwarding and logistics companies who operate multi-country cargo consolidation facilities.

He said that the import trade in Sri Lanka incurs heavy demurrage on account of the large number of holidays.

One solution for this is to set up a customs clearing house, which is manned 24 hours of the day for seven days of the week. Such a move will especially benefit factories outside Colombo.

Under the existing labour regulations Sunday is a prohibitive working day and as we have to meet export deadlines. This law has to be changed to have the seventh working day as the holiday so that the working week can start from any day of the week.

Delays in VAT refunds is another major constraint faced by all exporters which has forced them to borrow short term funds through overdraft facilities at exorbitant rates of interest. He said that one solution for this problem is set up an IRD unit at the Sri Lanka Customs to resolve discrepancies in export figures between the two institutions.

Rajapaksa said that to be competitive in the international market State support and assistance is vital for the promotion of national brands of Sri Lankan products on the lines of Ceylon Tea with the lion Logo.

Some of the products, which are identifiable with Sri Lanka in relation to their unique nature, are cinnamon, gemstones and pineapple.

Even though some brands of tea have been able to enter the niche markets much more needs to be done to add value to Sri Lankan produce.

Brand promotion is costly. It is time that a cess fund is created for the specific purpose of providing support to export enterprises with potential to introduce Sri Lankan brands to export markets.

He said that the already existing cess funds for certain sectors such as tea and rubber could also be utilised for this without diverting it for uses other than development of the sectors concerned.

The NCE was set up in 1986 with 30 small and medium exporters to be the voice of the exporters and it has grown to represent all exporters.

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