Lankan cable manufacturers cry foul over substandard imports
View(s):By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera
Lankan cable manufacturers are crying foul over substandard cable imports to the country saying they are hazardous to the industry. “Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) has been notified of this. These imports don’t have SLSI standardisation as well,” Mahinda Saranapala, CEO Kelani Cables told the Business Times. He said the domestic cable market also saw heightened competition with new entrants introducing lower cost products to the market. He said that SLSI is pursuing this matter.
Kelani Cables PLC is planning a Rs. 300 million expansion to be completed by next year in a bid to arrest their capacity constraints, he said. “We have identified a 277-perch land which is adjacent to are factory at Kelaniya for expansion,” He added that the company has already identified the required machinery to be set up at their new facility, once the expansion is done. With this expansion, Kelani Cables will install the right ‘mix’ of machines in order to arrest the current capacity constraints, Mr. Saranapala added.
The company posted a 123 per cent increase in its bottomline for the nine months ended 31st December 2012. “During the year we faced volatility in copper prices in international markets and operational challenges in the domestic market that had an overall adverse impact of our bottom line, such as the escalation of fuel prices, foreign exchange fluctuations, increase in electricity prices and also increased competition,” Mr. Saranapala added.
He said the company’s export portfolio too, continued to show growth. “In addition to our exiting export markets in the Maldives, Bangladesh, India and Japan during the 2011/12 financial year, we initiated negotiations to enter the lucrative Australian household wire market and we exported three shipments already,” he said, adding that Kelani Cables was able to send a few trial orders to South Africa during the year.
In their drive to improve operational efficiencies the company closed down several stores in different parts of the company and shifted to a central warehouse, by building a new state-of-the-art warehouse in its premises at Kelaniya. The central warehousing concept has proved to be more operationally efficient and also more cost effective, by reducing transport, loading and unloading time, Mr. Perera added.
“To expand our product portfolio, we introduced two new products to the local market, iron cables for domestic applications and for the apparel industry. Jumper cables (another new product) is to be used to jump start automatic vehicles,” he said.
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