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Business

Hambantota entrepreneur awards gets underway
The Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce (HDCC) said last week that it would accept applications for its Entrepreneur Awards from April 20 onwards.

The Entrepreneur Awards for the trading year 2000-2001 is one of the many initiatives this active district chamber organises to support and encourage entrepreneurial development. "The awards are open to all businesses in the district and the chamber looks forward to a record entry," a chamber statement noted.

It said application forms would be available from the chamber, the HDCC Information and Learning Centre, Tissa Road, Hambantota, Mangala Bookshop, Ambalantota and People's Pharmacy, Tissamaharama. Applications close on May 31.

The chamber said the awards would be for entrepreneurs working in the manufacturing sector and those working in the service sector. Judging will be undertaken by a team of three impartial judges and the awards ceremony will take place during the prestigious "Isuru Asiri" Exhibition to be held later this year.

Ceylinco SembCorp offers logistics solution to Nestle Lanka Ltd
Ceylinco SembCorp Integrated Logistics (Pvt) Ltd (CSIL), a joint venture between the Ceylinco group and SembCorp Logistics India Pvt Ltd, recently signed a logistics agreement with Nestle Lanka Ltd to manage its modern warehouse facility in the Pannala plant complex in Kurunegala.

Under the agreement, CSIL will be responsible for the warehousing, handling, order management, route planning and inventory functions for most of Nestle products.
CSIL, in a statement, said that as a specialised third party integrated logistics company they had the drive and energy to become the first point of reference.
"After a detailed study of the client's business, CSIL custom-builds a supply chain with an efficient bundling of logistics services, which fully meets the clients requirements. This integrated solution enables the client to concentrate on its core business operations, thereby effecting considerable economies of scale," it said.

The Indian firm is a fully owned subsidiary of SembCorp Logistics Singapore Ltd which is Asia's leading integrated logistics services provider focusing on supply chain management and offshore logistics.

Seylan Bank profits
With reference to last week's story on Seylan Bank's performance headlined "Seylan Bank operating profits flat," Rohini Nanayakkara, CEO/Director-General Manager of the bank has said the first paragraph of the article and the heading gave the reader a negative impression on the performance of the bank for the year ended 31st December 2001.

She said Seylan Bank was among the few banks that exceeded its performance in 2001 over its performance in 2000 in difficult economic conditions. "The bank deserved better exposure for its performance, in a positive manner than the very insignificant article with the misleading heading, in spite of our press release regarding the bank's performance," her letter said.

Business editor notes:
Our story was based on Seylan Bank's own annual report and therefore is an accurate report on the bank's performance. There was no intention of misleading the reader.

The general manager's report that operating profit was "Rs. 662 million, reflecting an increase of 0.48 percent over the previous year's figure" means that operating profit was flat as the increase reported was negligible.

Initially the bank denied the story saying that the general manager had not made the comments attributed to her.

Then, it was pointed out that the comments were taken from the bank's annual report. It was after this that the bank chose to complain about the headline and first paragraph.

EC-SAARC workshop on EU GSP scheme
A national seminar on the European Union's GSP Scheme and Regional Cumulation was organised by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka in association with the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Colombo recently, at the Jaic Hilton Tower. M.G. Hewage - Director General of Commerce of the Commerce Department inaugurated the seminar.

An FCCSL statement said in 1964, the UNCTAD discussed ways and means of granting special trade preferences for developing countries. As a result of these discussions, it was recommended to create a "Generalised System of Preferences (GSP)" under which industrialised countries would grant autonomous and non-reciprocal trade preferences to all developing countries.

The European Community was the first to implement its own GSP in 1971. From the beginning, the GSP was conceived as an autonomous trade policy instrument providing development-oriented preferences. This concept was reinforced in recent years. Over time, the EU scheme underwent a number of considerable changes and since 1995, it has done away with any quantitative limitations, taking on board one of the most prominent requests of the beneficiary countries.

Ever since the facility was granted to the SAARC region, the SAARC Secretariat has been receiving a large number of queries from representatives of business and industry seeking clarifications on technical and operational details of the scheme. With a view to creating awareness of this facility and also providing a good understanding of the scheme and the facilities that it offers, the SCCI Secretariat in consultation with the European Commission decided to organise a series of seminars under the EC-SAARC MoU, the statement added.

The EC nominated two expert Mr. Mike Humphrey and Ms. Fiona Carmichael who travelled around the region, holding consultations and seminars with the member governments and in particular with the member Federations of SCCI.

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