Damro gets a seat in Chennai

Damro Furniture Private Limited set up shop in Chennai recently taking its place amongst competing furniture giants Pace Furniture, Gothiya Furniture and Jayabarthan Furniture.

The Chairman of Damro's Sri Lankan arm. Dhamitha Ramanayake and company officials travelled around Chennai personally researching their competitors pricing and quality before devising their own competitive policy and locating in Arcott Road, Chennai.

The company is adopting a cost based pricing policy while keeping its eyes open to prices of its competitors in India, Director, Damro Exports (Pvt) Ltd, Kithsiri Herath, told The Sunday Times Business.

Although it benefits from a customs duty waivers in its first two years of operation under the Indo-Lanka Free trade agreement, numerous other tax payments to the Indian government such as a surcharge on customs duty countervailing duty and additional duty on customs remain.

Before locating in Chennai the company participated in a trade fair in Mumbai. Placing advertisements in Indian newspapers the company was able to gauge the reaction of other players in the trade, to their products, company officials said.

Damro Furniture Pvt Ltd is a company incorporated in India and in keeping with Indian laws. The company is predominantly Indian owned. However its Sri Lankan promoters intend increasing their stake in the company. It currently employs one Sri Lankan and nine Indians to manage the outlet in Chennai. While Sri Lankan expertise is used in finance and administrations, its Indian partners are able to focus primarily on the Indian culture manage marketing.

A traditionally Indian opening ceremony heralded the entry of Sri Lankan furniture on Indian soil.

Having received inquiries from 300 Indian dealers, the company is presently negotiating to expands points of sale, company sources said.

Nikini gets enjoining order against Jinasena

Nikini Automation Services (Pvt) Ltd., a pioneering industrial automation company in Sri Lanka got an enjoining order against Jinasena Engineering Technologies (Pvt) Ltd (JET), under the provisions of the Code of Intellectual Property Act. The Commercial High Court issued an enjoining order on September 27, against the infringement of Nikini's patent titled "Using Pneumatics on the tea roller."

Nikini Automation Services Pvt. Ltd., has been involved in the design and fabrication of automated machinery for the tea industry in Sri Lanka and abroad. Nikini is the distributor in Sri Lanka for world-renowned FESTO pneumatics and Siemens industrial electronic control systems.

They have to their credit another patented design for automation in the tea industry; a central computer controlled automated tea withering system. This system is already commissioned and is operational at the Karawita tea factory owned by Tea Small Holder Factories Ltd, member of the John Keells Group.

This tea roller design modifies the conventional tea roller, which is over 100 years old to have better and more consistent controls using the latest in Pneumatic and Control Technology.

At hearing, the plaintiff claimed that the Jinasena Engineering Technologies has infringed their patent No 11388, unlawfully. President's Counsel K. Kanage-Isvaran, Attorneys-At-Law Dr. Harsha Cabraal and Dinal Phillips appeared for the plaintiff.

Sarasavi scholarships to Ceybank unitholders

The second batch of beneficiaries for the award of the Sarasavi scholarships/bursary sponsored by the Board of Directors of The Unit Trust Management Co. (Pvt), Ltd., have been selected and were awarded the scholarship on Thursday, September 28, 2000 at a ceremony held at the Bank of Ceylon Headquarters. The chief guest on this occasion was Mrs. Dayani de Silva, Chairman, Bank of Ceylon and the guest of honour, Mr. Sarath de Silva, General Manager, Bank of Ceylon.

The beneficiaries have been selected from a cross section of the country and they hail from Heenatigalle, Kuliyapitiya, Homagama, Vavuniya, Point Pedro and Colombo districts. A few of the beneficiaries of the scholarship are the unitholders themselves, in that the investments have been made on their behalf by the parents several years ago when they were minors while the other beneficiaries are the children of the unitholders who have now entered University.

Sarasavi scholarships are awarded exclusively to investors of Ceybank Unit Trust and Century Growth Fund and any other future funds managed by UTMCL.

If an investor or his/her child is selected to enter an approved university to follow an undergraduate course of studies and if such unitholder has held the investment for a minimum of three-year period, he is eligible to apply for the scholarship.

The Board of Directors of UTMCL decided to create a Ceybank Investor Welfare Fund, which is to be funded from the shareholders' funds of the Unit Trust Management Co.

(UTMCL) The desired objective of the Board is to encourage higher education in the field where there is a significant contribution towards the country's economic growth and development.

Under this scholarship scheme, the recipient will be entitled to ten monthly cash awards per academic year throughout the programme of the undergraduate study, irrespective of the amount invested in Ceybank Unit Trust of Ceybank Century Growth Fund, says a news release.

British Trade Mission to Lanka

The British High Commission and Trade Partners UK are sponsoring a Trade Mission to Sri Lanka from 16-20 October. The Leicester, Birmingham and Luton and Bedfordshire Chambers of Commerce will be bringing 32 Companies representing a variety of business interests fabric inspection and measuring machines, health care and technology equipment, knitting machines, printing inks, printing machinery, recruitment services, specialist coatings, elastomeric yarns, hotel design, leather products, stainless steel pressing frames, internet sites for the apparel industry, sewing machinery, spares for quarry industry, education and retraining, legal services, energy consultancy, agencies, electronic education training equipment, the British Computer Society, generators, flexible hoses and steel pipe assemblies, freight services tractor spare parts, specialist training, investment, accomodation, smoke security devices, procurement, Heating/cooling equipment, fans, snooker/pool equipment and joint venture facilitation.

Sri Lankan businessmen interested in meeting mission members should contact Mr. Keith Horton, Mission Leader/Secretary at the Hotel Lanka Oberoi says a news release.

Emirates' Zurich flights to go daily,

From January 15, 2001, Emirates will operate daily, non-stop services between Dubai and Zurich, a schedule change that will also increase capacity to Istanbul.

Of the current six weekly flights to Zurich, three are routed via Istanbul.

From January 15, the Turkish city will enjoy four non-stop flights a week, with flights returning to Dubai shortly after midnight.

Seating capacity will be increased by a further 155 per cent on the Zurich operation due to the deployment of the bigger and technologically-advanced Airbus A330-200, offering 34 seats in Business Class and 251 in Economy. The aircraft is capable of carrying 13,000gs of cargo, in addition to a full passenger load, says a news release.

Millennium IT on a world first with NESDEX

By Akhry Ameer

Millennium IT has been signed-up by NESDEX Pte. Limited of Singapore as its strategic IT solutions partner to implement the world's first global equities marketplace.

Addressing the media, Chairman and CEO of NESDEX, B.C. Yong said: "The existing stock markets do not provide the architecture or systems to serve the future global marketplace. The securities industry will have to support globalisation of stock trading, extended hours, lower trading costs, instant price discovery, instant trade execution and the ability to trade anytime, anywhere in the world. The NESDEX Global e-Financial Marketplace Network is designed to respond to these global trends".

With Millenni-umIT's specialized solution, NESDEX aims to provide the most efficient, cost-effective and secure system for investors to trade in stocks listed in most major bourses, in a single market. At the end of its three-year period of implementation the GlobalDEX system will enable investors to manage a global portfolio spanning 43 countries.

Asked on the selection of Millennium IT, Mr. Yong said that Millennium IT had made their choice easy by demonstrating their commitment, professionalism and the capability to implement world-class software.

Commenting on the US$ 18 Million challenge, Millennium IT's CEO Tony Weerasinghe said: "We are used to automating one exchange in one place. This is no easy task". Although the first phase linking 2 to 5 major markets is to be implemented in one year, Mr. Weerasinghe observed with confidence, "We aim to roll it out in six months".

"It's a challenge to keep a system running where the sun never sets. It also shows a mark of maturity to connect 60,000 computers", said Ajith Samaranayake, Director Software speaking on the technical demand of creating a global system. The demand on the fault-tolerant software would be in the order of 1000 transactions per second during peak trading at a market like the NYSE.

Millennium IT designs and builds specialised software for the international capital market and telecommunications industry.

The company recently integrated MESDAQ, a Malaysian growth and technologies stock market in a record time of three months; using state of the art tools developed by the organization itself.

Many major firms and markets have expressed interest in the project and NESDEX is in the process of negotiating with two countries to base its market. NESDEX was formed in 1999 to create a global equity marketplace and global e-financial network by harnessing leading-edge technology to expand the array of equities, and increase the influx of liquidity. It aims to realize this by forming alliances with the world's major firms, custody agents, banks and financial institutions.

Mobitel launches SMS

Short Messaging System (SMS), a premium value added service which is offered by Mobitel, launched its service with the Sri Lankan cricket team at the new Duplication Road, 'Big M' office. The SMS service connections were activated to all the team members' mobile phones, says a news release.

Through SMS, you can receive short text messages on your mobile phone. This service is offered on Mobitel's digital service. Your friends and business associates can send you text messages any time to your phone through e-mail, 24-hour personal operator or the web.

Some of the advantages for the user is that you have a 24-hour live operator who will answer your missed or diverted calls and convey the messages through to your phone, like having your personal secretary. Also it lets anyone from any part of the world send you a message through the web based messaging system.

For further information contact: 071 755999.

Asian Paints look for success in Sri Lanka

Asian Paints, India's leading paint company, is glad to have another opportunity to repeat its success story in Sri Lanka, the company's Vice Chairman and Managing Director Ashwin Dani said last week.

In Sri Lanka to formalize the renaming of Delmege Forsyth & Co. (Paints), as Asian Paints (Lanka) Limited, Mr. Dani said the market environment in the paints sector in Sri Lanka, was similar to the environment that prevailed in India when Asian Paints commenced operations. "We had to compete healthily with established British companies, and become the market leaders 33 years ago," he told employees at the company's manufacturing plant at Moratuwa. "We are glad we are getting another opportunity in Sri Lanka, and our approach will be very positive."

Mr. Dani said Asian Paints has earned a reputation of being consistently fair to customers, shareholders, suppliers and employees, and the same policies of ethical business practices would be followed in Sri Lanka. Asian Paints (India) which was established in 1942, is now ranked one of the top 15 decorative paints manufacturers in the world, and the second most profitable paint company worldwide. The company owns the largest Research and Development facility in Asia, with more than 150 scientists, a news release said.

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