Cargills grows, ice cream in April
Cargills, the supermarket giant, is going ahead with a major expansion
programme – planning to invest Rs. 200 to 300 million in its Food City
retail chain coupled with next month's launch of its ice cream business.
"We are looking at exciting times ahead for the group," said Ranjit
Page, the company's deputy chairman and managing director, adding that
the group was also looking at prospective new investment ventures.
The country's pioneer super-marketer, with 23 stores across the island,
aims to expand to 30 by the end of the year and almost double its current
number to 40 by December 2003. It is hoping to reach some 60 stores in
five years, other officials said.
Along with the mega expansion programme is the Sinhala and Tamil New
Year launch of the former Unilever's Walls ice cream range that the company
now owns.
Page declined to divulge the name of the new ice cream brand but said
it would not be Walls. "We are running trials at the factory. Ice cream,
we hope, would account for 30 percent of overall group turnover," he said.
Cargills, a 160-year-old food and beverage retailing company which quickly
made its mark in the supermarket business, last January purchased the assets
of the Walls factory which closed down due to a labour dispute. Walls had
a 20 percent share of the ice cream market with Elephant House controlling
the market.
"We are confident of advancing in market share with the advantage of
a high-tech production facility," he said, adding that the company made
a good investment, paying a lower figure than the original investment made
by Walls.
Asked whether the popular Walls concept of using young men to sell ice
cream on tricycles would be maintained, Page smiled but declined to comment.
He said the company is the biggest single buyer of meat and vegetables
in Sri Lanka, consuming daily 6,000 kg of chicken, 6,000 eggs and 4,000
tonnes of vegetables supplied by more than 100 farmers across the island.
"We are much bigger than any other institution in terms of buying produce
and meat," he said adding that the supply is taken to the company's processing
facility at Mattakkuliya from where it is distributed.
Cargills deals directly with the farmer and pays farmgate prices so
that "ultimately the customer benefits," Page added.
New ideas at reforms confab
Last week's financial reforms conference threw up new ideas and generated
fresh thinking among stakeholders which now need to be formally presented
as a set of recommendations, Dr. Nadeem Ul Haq, the International Monetary
Fund's senior resident representative, said.
"There was a lot of thinking, of open and frank discussion - for the
first time the private sector spoke freely," he said.
"A lot of new ideas came up. The financial community must move this
forward. They must refine these ideas and get them worked out into recommendations,"
he said.
The business community needs to "do more selling of the reform agenda,"
he said. Hopefully, labour market reforms would be next on the agenda,
he added. People need to get over the social mindset of the 1970s and be
convinced of the need for economic reforms, he said.
Deregulation, as one of the speakers at the conference had pointed out,
was no longer a dirty word, Dr. Ul Haq said. Sri Lanka needs to improve
its financial education system with more business schools run by the private
sector, he said.
"There are not enough financial professionals, not enough financial
education," he said. "There's a need for more business schools run by the
private sector." The conference had discussed the need for a new set of
laws to regulate the financial system and for less state activity in the
system, he said.
There was a need to reduce government borrowing so that more finance
would be available for the private sector, he said. "We need more financial
innovation," he said. "The stock market needs to wake up and grow."
Pramuka chief rejects "crisis" rumoursBy Hiran Senewiratne
Pramuka Bank intends to expand its operations through its business development
officers if economic conditions turn favourable, its chairman Rohan Perera
said.
The company has appointed 12 Business Development officers in major
cities covering eight districts to promote the bank's products at the regional
level and hopes to expand into all districts including Jaffna, Perera told
The Sunday Times Business in an interview.
Jaffna was a region that generated a substantial amount of deposits
before the war, an indication of its potential if there is peace, he said.
Asked about rumours that the bank was in trouble and that he had been
"missing" and not contactable, Perera dismissed the reports, saying that
he had gone to Britain to see his first grand-daughter.
He denied rumours that the bank was in financial difficulty, saying
that despite last year's economic downturn the bank recorded an eight percent
growth.
When the bank was launched in 1997, it refrained from expanding its
business operations and increasing the branch network because of the unfavourable
economic conditions prevailing at the time, Perera said.
There had been a noticeable slowdown in lending in recent years owing
to the economic downturn, he said. Nevertheless, the bank had been able
to mobilise over three billion rupees in deposits last year. Net profit
this year is expected to be almost Rs. 18 million.
The regulatory authorities should pay more attention to developing the
indigenous banking sector, he said.
IMF rep ends term
Dr. Nadeem Ul Haq, the International Monetary Fund's senior resident representative
in Sri Lanka who has been a vocal advocate of economic reform, will end
his term in the country shortly.
Dr. Ul Haq said he was likely to leave "by the end of summer" after
arriving here in August 1999. His next posting could be in Washington.
The Pakistani-born economist has maintained a high profile during his
tenure here, in keeping with the IMF's current policy of being more open
and of trying to win public support for its reform programme.
He has been with the international lending agency for almost 18 years
and before taking up his appointment in Sri Lanka he served as the advisor
to the IMF Institute and the Research Department of the IMF. He also worked
as an economist for a short time at the World Bank. |
