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Three more books in Sinhalen Business series Deepal Sooriyaarachchi,
the well-known Sri Lankan marketing expert, last week launched three
more books in his popular series "Sinhalen Business". The launch
was preceded with a seminar which was addressed by Professor Gunapala
Nanayakkara on "Knowledge, business success and language",
Professor J.B. Dissanayaka on "Can Business knowledge be imparted
in Sinhala", Victor Hettigoda on "Knowledge and the Sinhala
Businessman", Senior university lecturer Daya Rohana on "Business
success, attitudes and language" and Dr. Uditha Liyanage who
reviewed the Sinhalen Business series in the context. "Although
the language of commerce is English the majority of our people learn
and communicate in Sinhala and Tamil. Today business is very much
knowledge based. But most of the modern business knowledge is available
only in English. Hence this has placed the Sinhala only businesspersons
at a disadvantageous position. When information is available in
one's mother tongue it is understood better. But very little is
being done really to fill this gap. Sinhalen business attempts to
do just that," Sooriyaarachchi said. This time he chose Time Management, Presentation Skills and How to recruit and Train, titled as "Kalayen weda genme kalawa", "Sabhaven Avasarai" and Sevaka Sampatha" respectively. ShellWIRE Trust holds first forum The first Shell
LiveWIRE Youth Enterprise Forum was held recently in Colombo with
over 40 participants from various regional Business Development
Service Organizations attending. The forum was
inaugurated by the LiveWIRE Trust's chairman Roberto Moran who stressed
the Shell Company's commitment towards the Shell LiveWIRE Trust
and towards encouraging young Sri Lankans to realise that starting-up
and operating a business of their own is not only a viable but an
attractive option to conventional employment. The Shell LiveWIRE programme in Sri Lanka is now three years old and has established itself successfully as a gateway to enterprise for youth between 16 and 32. The majority of Shell LiveWIRE's beneficiaries are found in rural parts of Sri Lanka and it has touched and hopefully improved the lives of over 5,000 youths. Assets Management Co for People's Bank seen as dangerous trend By Quintus
Perera A CEBU spokesman
said this was more dangerous than the privatisation of the bank
itself. People's Bank
chairman Lal Nanayakkara at a recent press conference to present
the bank's 2002 annual report did mention about the introduction
of the new company. He said that
last year, PB earned its highest ever-operating profit of Rs. 2,899
million, up 71.7 percent over 2001 and its highest after tax profit
of Rs. 1,005 million - the first time the bank has surpassed the
one billion mark. The bank's
biggest problem was the non-performing loans and even with it, it
has made significant progress in recovering funds over Rs. 1.3 billion,
he said Nanayakkara said privatisation would be quite a long process
and the bank was now getting its own valuation of assets and liabilities. The CBEU spokesman
said that though the government has repeatedly assured that the
two state banks won't be privatised, the government has in fact
been targeting to privatise the banks. He said that the assets company
would gradually move into the bank's permanent assets too. The spokesman
said that the government is expected to bring in certain amendments
to the Banking Act to enable the formation of the Assets Management
Company. He said that taking the case of Bank of Ceylon, the total
assets base has been estimated to be Rs. 236 billion and more than
50 percent of this base are fixed assets such as land, buildings,
etc. Once the AMC is authorized to encroach into the fixed assets,
the company could do whatever it wanted such as selling, leasing,
etc. The CBEU spokesman said that if AMCs were floated the first to be hit would be the small-scale borrower. IMF rep calls for more transparency Foreign investors
are unlikely to invest in Sri Lanka in a big way without transparency
in government and corporate affairs, Senior Resident Representative
of the International Monetary Fund, Jeremy Carter said. "Sri Lanka
should make transparency their competitive edge over the other Asian
countries," he said. "For Sri
Lanka to grow there should be investments made from within and outside
the country. Outsiders will not invest unless there is transparency,"
Carter told the recent Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri
Lanka (ICASL) presentation of awards for annual reports and corporate
governance disclosures. The question
now was not whether good governance was desired but the need to
set standards, he said. Standards are
difficult to set and if they are too low there will be bad consequences. Experienced,
trained professionals such as charted accountants are needed to
set standards, he added. Commercial
Bank won the award for the best corporate governance disclosure
while also winning the banking sector award. Eagle Insurance Company was first runner-up of the good corporate governance disclosure awards while DFCC was second runner-up. (TM) Ayojana partner aims for regional fund Aureos Capital
Ltd, which has a 50 percent stake in Sri Lanka's Ayojana Fund Management
(Pvt) Ltd, is currently evaluating the development of a regional
South Asia Fund, Ayojana said in a statement last week. It said Aureos
was aiming to make small and medium enterprise (SME) private equity
investments in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Maldives. "Following
its global model these funds will be managed by a local team enhancing
the fund's ability to source deals and adopt a "hands-on"
approach to portfolio management." In July 2001,
Aureos - a global SME private equity fund manager - bought up CDC's
stake in Ayojana and now jointly manages it with NDB. Ayojana currently
manages two private equity capital funds with a total committed
capital of Rs. 930 million, investing the funds in a wide range
of sectors including information technology, hotels and tourism,
manufacturing and property development. Key investments include
Millennium Information Technologies (MIT), Aqua Packaging Pvt. Ltd,
Hayleys MGT Textiles Limited and Union Resorts Pvt. Ltd. Successful
realisations of investments to-date include Lion Brewery, Ceylon
Brewery and Associated Motorways. The statement said Aureos was expanding its business from country specific funds to regional funds. "The soundness of this strategy led to the successful launch of the $38 million Aureos Central America Fund in July 2002, confirming that Aureos provides an exceptional vehicle for investors seeking to optimise and diversify their investment portfolio into private sector enterprises in emerging markets," it added. Seylan Bank loans for small industries Seylan Bank
has introduced its own credit line, branded 'Seylan SMILE', that
is specially designed to meet the financial needs of small and medium
scale industries. Projects with
an investment not exceeding Rs. 30 million in fixed assets (excluding
land and building) on completion are eligible for assistance up
to a maximum of Rs. 10 million at an interest rate of 14 percent
a year. The scheme
is operative islandwide through the bank's network of 92 branches,
a Seylan Bank statement said. The loans granted
must be repaid according to the cash flow generation of the project
and within a maximum period of seven years, including the maximum
grace period of one year for repayment of capital. Seylan Bank said the manufacturing, industrial services, construction contracting, agro-based industries, commercial and public transport, aquaculture, animal husbandry, and other service-oriented industries are eligible for loans under the scheme. World Bank's $800 mln deal for Sri Lanka The World Bank
last week announced a $ 800 million package of assistance over the
next four years for Sri Lanka, a step that was together welcomed
by the United National Party government and President Chandrika
Kumaratunga. The Sunday
Times FT in a story headlined “World Bank's Lanka deal in April”
on March 16 exclusively reported that the bank would announce its
package this month. The story also quoted Peter Harrold, country
director at the World Bank office in Colombo as saying that the
support would include a grant, for the first time by the bank, of
US $ 50 million. The Sri Lanka
Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) outlines a programme which includes
$800 million of new assistance, in the form of grants and interest-free
loans from the World Bank's International Development Association
(IDA) over the next four years. This amount is significantly higher
than IDA lending to Sri Lanka over the last five years - which averaged
about $60 million per year," last week's bank statement said.
"Sri Lanka now has the opportunity to embark on a path of sustained
peace, more rapid economic growth, and poverty reduction that will
benefit the entire population," said Harrold. "This new
strategy is a significant expression of the World Bank's confidence
in the country's progress in these areas so far, and we are very
pleased to be able to offer this support at such a crucial time."
The CAS is organized around three central themes: Peace, Growth,
and Equity. It identifies peace and restoration of domestic security
as the basis for the future of the Sri Lankan economy, stating that,
"without peace, there is no prospect for development."
The strategy builds upon work the Bank is already doing to support
resettlement and revival of livelihoods in the North and East of
the country, through restoration of health services, irrigation
and water supply, as well as payments to displaced people who are
returning home. To support short-term increased assistance by international
donors for Sri Lanka's reconstruction and rehabilitation, the Bank
will act as administrator of a North East Reconstruction Fund (NERF).
The last World Bank CAS for Sri Lanka was presented in June 1996.
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