Lankan cuisine, condoms in China
From Feizal Samath in Beijing
Sri Lankan businessmen, seeking joint ventures with Chinese partners, soon need not worry about missing that away-from-home string hoppers and seeni sambol when in Beijing.
The conglomerate Ceylinco group, part of a high powered business delegation that accompanied Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on a working visit to China last week, is close to setting up an upscale Chinese restaurant - with Chinese partners - that would serve local cuisine made by Lankan chefs. It would be the first Sri Lankan restaurant in Beijing and probably the only one in China, so far.
"China is not any easy market to break in to start a restaurant. Even the Indians have just a few restaurants in this great country," Sicille P.C. Kotelawala, Deputy Chairman of Ceylinco Consolidated told The Sunday Times FT after a hectic round of negotiations at the Kerry Centre Hotel in Beijing last Monday.
She said her group was planning to launch the Chinese restaurant with Lankan cuisine and later, depending on the demand for Sri Lankan food, turn it into an exclusive Sri Lankan outlet. Local chefs sent by Ceylinco a few months back cooked Sri Lankan food at a local food mart here, which turned out to be a successful experiment.
The Beijing business conference on Monday, bringing together Sri Lankan and Chinese businessmen resulted in a lot of networking and potential partners.
The two sides sat down at one-on-one meetings soon after the formal sessions where Mr Wickremesinghe made a strong appeal for Chinese investment in Sri Lanka were over. Several among the 50-strong Sri Lankan delegation said they were close to striking a deal towards a factory or enterprise in Sri Lanka that can raise jobs and increase foreign exchange through exports.
The Wayamba Economic Development Commission represented by its director general, Suraj Dandeniya, pressed ahead with plans for an exclusive economic zone for Chinese investors in Kurunegala. Some of the projects under negotiation with Chinese partners are in construction and infrastructure, civil engineering, coal power and bio gas, value added tea for export, a three-way (Japan-China-Sri Lanka) collaboration for the production of foam bra cups for MAS Holdings, a shoe manufacturing plant in Hambantota by Bettans, mono rail systems, bicycles for the local and Indian market and oil exploration. Leisure firms like the John Keells group, Aitken Spence and Ceylinco (planning a new drive in this sector including a potential tourist resort at Puttalam) made a pitch for more visitors from China.
At least three companies including Hands International and the Daya Group are planning to set up condom plants in Sri Lanka with Chinese expertise to export to China and East European markets. Edmond Jayasinghe, former diplomat and now a consultant to the Daya Group, said they hoped to produce at least two million condoms a year.
The Board of Investment (BOI) will shortly appoint Jiang Qin Zheng, former Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka and now retired, as a consultant based in Beijing to promote investments in Sri Lanka. He would liaise with Upali Ubayasekera, minister-commercial at the Sri Lankan embassy here in the new promotion drive. "We are working out a budget for this exercise," said BOI chairman Arjunna Mahendran adding that the former diplomat was keen to use his Sri Lankan experience to promote joint ventures.
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