Garment Industry grows despite challenges

Ashroff Omar, Guest of Honour at the OPA 21st Annual Sessions
addressing the gathering.
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Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) had its
21st Annual Sessions on "Eradication of Poverty and Hunger" recently at
the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Colombo. The
Guest of Honour at this annual sessions was Ashroff Omar, CEO of Brandix
Lanka Ltd. There were four technical sessions; Agriculture; Trade,
Finance, Banking; Industries and Infrastructure; and Human Capital
Development. There were 20 technical presentations under the theme of
Eradication of Poverty and Hunger.
In keeping with this year's theme, "Eradication of Poverty and
Hunger" Omar presented a refreshing approach to working towards
Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by bringing business, civil
society, and the Government together. Omar quoted from the Department of
Census and Statistics Survey that 15.2% of Sri Lanka's population live
below the poverty line with less than US$ one a day and more alarmingly
over 50% of the population of our country have below 2030 k cal level of
dietary energy consumption.
He highlighted the contribution that the Industry has made in
alleviating this situation to a large extent by taking work to the
worker, providing employment and essentially transforming the rural
landscape. In fact, the clothing industry is the first and the only in
large scale industry that has moved to a rural Sri Lanka as a viable
poverty eradication alternative to traditional industries such as
fisheries and agriculture. Omar said that his company has already
started setting up operations in the east coast and expected to commence
exports as early as December 2008. This is an war area and commencing
development processes will definitely uplift the lives of the people in
the area.
Omar stated that the industry has been able to continue to grow
amidst tremendous global competition due to its continuous innovation
and value addition. He stressed that education and professional
intervention providing innovation and value addition is key for the
development and growth of these industries which filter down to the
society in terms of increased employment and better living conditions.
The President of the OPA, Upali Bulumulla said that most of our
people earn less than Rs. 200 per day and 25% of the people are in
extreme poverty and earn Rs. 100 a day. Many people are from rural
underdeveloped areas. This was the backdrop that caused OPA to have a
theme on "Poverty Eradication."
Bulumulla said to improve lies of the poor, it is necessary to plan
and implement projects and programs that will create actual jobs,
improve health and education facilities. He said that all should work
towards Poverty alleviation and that by 2020, poverty should be history
in Sri Lanka. |