Canada to promote trade

Trade between Sri Lanka and Canada has grown and currently is around $ 400 m, said Canadian High Commission Political Counsellor Megan Foster at a ceremony to sign a MoU between the Sri Lanka-Canada Business Council (SLCBC) and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) on Thursday. She said that Sri Lanka and Canada are keen to promote bilateral trade and investments which are growing at a steady pace. Loadstar a tyre manufacturing company in Sri Lanka was bought by a Canadian company recently.

“Many Canadian companies are interested in investing in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a fine destination for tourists,” she said.Sri Lanka's main export item to Canada is apparel which accounts for around 60 percent of the country's value of exports to Canada. The other main export items to Canada are tea, surgical gloves, solid tyres, pneumatic rubber tyres, printed circuits, fish and crustaceans, precious and semi precious stones, glazed ceramic tiles, wall tiles, activated carbon, raw coconut and coir.

Wheat and meslin account for over 80 percent of Canada's exports to Sri Lanka. The other import items from Canada are dried legumes, unbleached kraft liner (paper), asbestos, chemical wood pulp, peas (dried and shelled) and newsprint. WUSC has committed over $ 60 m during the past 23 years to promote vocational training among Sri Lankan youth.

The organisation provides training in carpentry, construction related employment, tailoring, air conditioning, and cosmetology.

The primary beneficiaries of the program are youth in the North and the East and the South.Country Director WUSC, Richard Bonokoski said that a majority of the trainees are males and added that around 65 percent of the participants obtain jobs on completion of the training program. WUSC supports the government in the NVQ programs.

-LF