Jaffna’s business community is making an earnest appeal to the government to allow it to take a leading role in the post-war development of business and industry in the region.
“We are prepared to re-organise and rejuvenate the industry. Give us a chance to be a major part of it – instead of the government going it alone or doing the bulk of it,” pleaded Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce, Jaffna Ratnalingam Jeyasegaran in an interview with the Sunday Times FT at the chamber office in the town.
“We have the money to invest and we can run the businesses – even those handled by state agencies earlier,” he said referring to the cement, chemicals and salt factories that flourished in the Jaffna peninsula in the pre-war era.
During a visit to the peninsula to cover the August 8 Municipal Council elections, there was a buzz in the air about major development taking place but the concern is that the people of Jaffna would be left out in the decision-making that would be guided, facilitated and controlled by the powers that be in Colombo.
Mr Jeyasegaran’s views were echoed by many other businessmen, traders and senior citizens. “We need to be part of the development and take a big role in deciding what is right for us,” said one trader, who owns a shoe store but declined to be named.
Chamber President Rasiah Janakumar, present at the same interview, said the government should provide an industrial zone to locate all the new industries that would come up. This proposal was also made during a recent meeting with Industrial Development Minister Kumara Welgama who was in Jaffna some weeks back.
The Minister had spoken of the need to revive the cement, salt and (Paranthan) chemicals factories among other industries as state entities. The business community however says they would like to be equal partners in this development or are even ready to go alone as privatised entities and find their own partners.
Despite the war and deprivation, Jaffna’s economy has been dominated by huge inflows of money from expatriate Tamils which in many ways helped to keep it afloat. Businessmen say this money, used to generally sustain families, would increase with the new-found peace and be a major source of investment.
According to Jaffna bankers, at least two private banks in the town have been over many years receiving a daily average of Rs 2 to 3 million (each) as remittances making it at least Rs 5 million per day from these branches in the town, working out to about Rs 2 billion a year in foreign remittances from two branches alone. Economists and money market experts in Colombo say this is a huge sum that could be used to drive investment and private-led infrastructure development.
Colombo’s business community is well aware of this sizable cash infusion and moving swiftly to re-establish trade links. Officials from the David Peiris Motor Car Co, dealers of Bajaj trishaws and motorcycles, said that in their first consignment expected to move this week to the region, intended buyers of motor cycles offered upfront cash whereas in Colombo and other areas its on easy payment terms or credit.
Jaffna’s economy was build on a sound foundation of seafood -- fish, prawns, lobster, cuttle fish; vegetables and fruits - onions, tobacco leaf, beetroot, banana, grapes, mango and jackfruit; and industry -- cement, asbestos, salt, chemicals, steel buckets, aluminium goods. All this has been destroyed and needs to be revived.
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