FCCISL overjoyed over success at 5th World Chamber Congress

The post tsunami livelihood and enterprise rehabilitation project of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) commonly known as the 'Back to Business project' received the prestigious World Chambers Federation Award last week.

The award was presented at the 5th World Chambers Congress held from July 4 – 6 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey.

FCCISL President Nawaz Rajabdeen said over 250 member chambers participated but the Sri Lanka Chamber received the first prize out of 55 entries from 38 countries.

Rajabdeen explained that after the tsunami, the government was not geared to help micro and small industries and the business community was not looked after. "Two days after the tsunami, we did the ‘Back to Business’ project and did a needs survey," he said. "We took into account the 10,000 medium and small enterprises and conducted the survey district by district." The districts included Kalutara, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Mullativu and Jaffna. "We tried a mechanism by giving trauma counseling, entrepreneur skill development, facilitation process for entrepreneurs to obtain credit, grants for micro industries and cottage industries, joint evaluation committee for grand and micro credit components."

The award was presented to exceptional projects in activities that are not typically associated with a chamber of commerce which are inspirational, innovative and demonstrating that their development fulfilled a specific need and objective of the country's business community, serving its Small and Medium enterprises and the local economy.

"We mobilized funds of Rs.744 million, grants of Rs. 227 million and bank loans facilitation of Rs.517 million," Rajabdeen said.

This was mainly supported by the government of the Netherlands. "We had a fairly big say in this whole operation and this is why it was accepted by the Netherlands government. It was a pride for them."