Financial Times

Sri Lankan IT team explores joint venture with UK firms

From Neville de Silva in London
A high- powered IT delegation from Sri Lanka made quite an impression here that could lead to several partnerships between major IT firms in Colombo and the UK.

The Sri Lankan delegation led by the state-owned Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and comprising senior officials of leading IT firms in Colombo spent a week in London recently exploring avenues of co-operation with top British IT companies.

"We have had a very successful visit. Most of the British companies we met are very interested in working in Sri Lanka and or setting up operations there," Reeza Zarook, Programme Specialist of the ICTA told The Sunday Times FT.

"At this stage it would be premature to name the companies. Most would be visiting us over the course of the next few months," he added.

Earlier ICTA made an impressive presentation at the High Commission during a reception hosted by High Commissioner Faisz Musthapha and attended by both Sri Lankans and representatives from Britain's world of information technology. The High Commission's Trade Counsellor Neil Mahagederagamage co-ordinated the programme.

"We are very proud to bring some of our country's finest technology houses to London and showcase their capabilities to the UK IT community and also explain to the UK ICT companies how they can partner these and other Sri Lankan companies in future state re-engineering projects," ICTA's Managing Director and CEO, Manju Hathotuwa said in making the presentation.

He said that in the next few months ICTA would be announcing some government projects that would interest British firms. "Sri Lanka has IT capabilities that are of world standard," concurred one of the representatives from a Britisher firm present at the viewing.

Hathotuwa said that among the succcessful programmes undertaken in Sri Lanka by ICTA is eMoney Order, the country's first e-Cash system.

He said that currently only 400,000 persons in Sri Lanka have credit cards. "If we want to see people using the Internet for transactions we must give them the means to do so. This project is promoted by the Post Office and people can go into the initial 75 post offices and exchange cash for a secure transaction ID. This ID can then be used for Internet transactions with designated service providers," Hathotuwa said. The visit to the UK, one of the target markets for Sri Lankan software and ICT services, was partly funded by the UK Trade and Invest, a British government body set up to promote trade and commerce for UK companies.

While top executives from about 10 Sri Lankan companies were on the delegation, representatives of some 15 major British companies attended the presentation.

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