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Business

Coffee-table book on Sri Lankan personalities
Key Research and Information Ltd (KRIL), a member of Ceylinco Consolidated, last week launched an ambitious but unique project - the Millennium Register of Sri Lankan Personalities.

Yusuf Noordeen, KRIL's Director/General Manager, told reporters that this plush coffee-table publication would contain information - condensed in 150 words and one picture per entry - of a minimum 10,000 Sri Lankans from all walks of life.

"One may ask why we need a register of Sri Lankans when we have many directories today? That's because in this case this is a truly Sri Lankan product and tells the world about individuals, their social, educational, professional, sporting, ancestry, heritage, political and other facets of life," he said. The publication is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka and is like the Who's Who published across the world with one exception - it is not limited to big names.

"Anyone and everyone, big or small, can be listed in the register," Noordeen noted.
Inclusion in the index of 10,000 personalities is at a subscription of Rs. 10,000 each. The register, due to be completed by January 2003, would be given only to subscribers with complimentary copies to Sri Lankan embassies abroad, local libraries and commerce chambers. The register won't carry any advertisements and will be a once-and-for-all publication.

"We don't have any plans for another version later on," said Noordeen.

Dewapura invests in Ugandan garment factory
Sri Lanka's Kumar Dewapura, who owns the Tristar apparel group, is planning to set up a garment factory and school in the Bugolobi coffee plant currently used by Uganda Grain Traders Ltd and Uganda Revenue Authority, according to newspaper reports from Uganda.

Dewapura is now in Uganda to conclude negotiations with the government on the establishment of a garment industry and training school for girls in which he is investing $1.5 million.

Last week he met State Minister for Trade, Abel Rwendeire and State Minister for Privatisation, Prof. Peter Kasenene at the Grand Imperial Hotel to hammer out the last issues in the deal, the reports said.

The former Coffee Marketing Board plant in Bugolobi is currently used by the Uganda Revenue Authority as a customs point and Uganda Grain Traders Limited (UGTL) who use its silos.

Dewapura said he planned to set up a garment industry to export to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act scheme while also developing girls' skills. "We hope to provide 1,000 jobs in the first phase," he was quoted as saying.
He said his group hoped to set up 30 factories and ten supporting centres. The Tristar group has similar garment factories in Kenya and Botswana.

ComBank's Homagama CSP gets full branch status
The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has upgraded its Customer Service Point (CSP) at Homagama to full branch status, providing residents of the area with a wider range of facilities and services.

The upgrade was in response to numerous requests by customers for a fully-fledged branch and makes Homagama the first of Commercial Bank's CSPs to be upgraded, a bank statement said.

Speaking at the ceremonial launch of the branch, Commercial Bank Managing Director Amitha Gooneratne said residents and businesses in the area would now be able to open Current Accounts, obtain credit facilities, open Letters of Credit for imports and conduct any export related transactions at the Homagama branch.
"At this point, when changes are taking place on political and economic fronts, the Commercial Bank will be fully conscious of the changing business environment," he said. "We will launch innovative new products and services and offer short, medium and long term project financing to support this process."

Sri Lanka's fresh milk productivity low
Sri Lankan productivity in terms of fresh milk production is low compared to the world average, according to Chethiya Sri-Nammuni, commercial director at New Zealand Milk.

"We brought down a consultant from New Zealand to study the industry and also provided training for local farmers, at time when the late Mr. S. Thondaman was the Livestock Minister. The consultant found productivity very low compared to the world average," he said, adding that the consultant conducted experimental programmes at the company's model farm at Avissawella and after a while production rose two-fold.

Nammuni was speaking during an interview by The Sunday Times Business with New Zealand Milk senior management including Mathew Oldham, its managing director, to discuss developments of the company which markets the Anchor and Newdale range of milk and allied products.

Oldham, referring to a proposal to raise import duties on powdered milk food, said it would be a negative move and could adversely affect the consumer.

Here are excerpts of the interview with Oldham:
" It is good to develop the industry to be efficient and provide certain products for the local industry. We have a mix of the two - importing milk powder and investing quite heavily in a factory and a new brand based on Sri Lankan milk. The plant is not nearly full. We have room to grow there. Our focus is the income the farmers will receive (with current payment at Rs. 18 per litre) and work together with them to develop their cattle, their grass, their pasture, production practices and hygiene practices so that a whole chain from the cow right through to the consumer is of a high standard and at an acceptable cost.

We have six collection centres with refrigerated facilities. We check the milk there and bring it in small tanker trucks from these chilling centres to the factory here.
We wanted the liquid milk business to grow and I believe other companies would also be doing it as well.

Our production base started in Hanwella in July 1997 and now we have centres at Bandaragama, Puwakpitiya, Kiriwantuduwa, Talawalakelle and Nawalapitiya.

We bring in 9,000 litres per day and we maintain high quality standards. We have provided free consultancy services to farmers. The New Zealand government has also provided long-term consultancy services to local farmers.

As far as the future is concerned, we can - and want to - quadruple production as we have underutilized capacity at the moment. We can take in three times more milk than now.

In terms of the industry, what needs to be looked at is the whole input chain - how do you get quality milk and develop the range of products for the market at reasonable cost.

It is oversimplying the situation if it is assumed that by doubling the duty on milk powder and raising milk powder prices, farmers will become more productive and liquid milk prices will be cheaper then powdered milk.

Everybody agrees the local industry should be developed. On the other hand, dairy production has increased by 25 percent in the past few years. Sri Lankans are drinking a lot more milk than 10 years ago and much of the demand is met by low cost, high quality milk powder.

The company wants to develop the local industry to provide products like fresh milk, yoghurt, drinks and value added products. There will always be a place for milk powder.

"We don't have plans for a spray drying plant. It is not viable to try to compete with the international milk powder market which is dominated by countries like New Zealand and Australia. An average size of a New Zealand farm is 250 cows. They eat only grass off the ground and the processing plants have huge spray dryers. To compete with that is unrealistic. If we set up a milk powder industry here in Sri Lanka we would end up paying more than what is now paid for imported milk powder."

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