The Cargills group said this week that it plans to create 1,000 jobs in the next 18 to 24 months in Sri Lanka’s post-war economy and is working towards establishing an international brand in the near future.
Waiting for interviews outside Cargills |
“A month ago I challenged the team at Cargills to create 1000 new jobs. This challenge has been taken and in the last three weeks alone we have recruited over 400 people. If you come outside our main office you will see many parents from different parts of the country coming with their children to gain employment,” Cargills Managing Director Ranjit Page told the Sunday Times FT.
In a wide ranging interview on Tuesday explaining the company’s challenges and future direction, Mr. Page spoke on the urgency of creating jobs and help rural communities; was disappointed by the lack of investment from corporates after the end of the war, said Sri Lankan companies are capable of producing an international brand and stressed the need for governance and transparency.
He said while the stock exchange has risen sharply in recent months, the value of companies and a few individuals who own a large slice these companies have also increased (on paper). “But has Sri Lanka benefited from this? The answer from me is no. Why and what are we waiting for? Are we waiting for things to fall on our laps or should we not go out invest and take a challenge and take a risk for people who lost their blood for us. This is the challenge we are faced with,” he noted.
Excerpts of the interview:
Since the end of the war in Sri Lanka on May 18 I have been questioning myself and looking at what Cargills has done in terms of generating employment in the New Sri Lanka. Very sadly until a few weeks back Cargills did not create any new employment. I think it’s the same with many other corporates. An end of a 27-year old war should by now have created many new opportunities. However it seems we are all sitting and waiting for the state to create this economic revitalization. But if you look around the world, if you look at Japan after World War II, Japan was built by strong brands. Japan was not built by a government. Honda is not a government brand Sony is not a government brand. It is strong entrepreneurship.
It is entrepreneurship that develops brands. Today those brands are worldwide. Sadly in Sri Lanka we have only one Brand. That is Dilmah. Many people claim that we have more than one brand but Dilmah is the only Sri Lankan brand that you would see in any supermarket in the world at any airport. It sits on the shelf alongside its powerful multinational competitors and challenges those international brands. We cannot wait for the state, corporates must take up the challenge to build the economy. Now if we are to make a difference in the New Sri Lanka we have to think of the entire country. Even yesterday I was spoken to by a very senior academic who asked me what is happening and why there seems to be an air of complacency. My response to him was that we in the corporate world are busy trying to protect our positions; our positions and ranking of number one, two, three or ten that we have received from a chamber or some organization. We are too afraid to venture out, to take the risk and challenge ourselves to create opportunities for Sri Lankans.
Imagine the situation of the country if the state sector became the main source of employment in the regions that have just entered the mainstream economy. Our taxation would increase, the cost of our operations would escalate and cost of living would increase. Ultimately the businesses we are trying to safeguard would no longer be as profitable.
On rural youth
Many thousands of youth from rural Sri Lanka have sacrificed their lives to give us this opportunity. Cargills as a retailer touches 22 districts we have three more districts to go. Majority of our team is young, 70% of them below 25 years of age from different parts of the country. These young people from rural Sri Lanka serve our customers islandwide.
We do everything within our limits to educate them, train them so that they would be strong service assistants or managers. Sometimes our customers are not happy with the service they get. However one must also understand the situations, the background of these youth. What I would like to observe here is that if the youth from rural Sri Lanka sacrificed their lives to give us this opportunity should we not also give them an opportunity, understand their backgrounds, realise that they face many challenges? We owe it to them to give them a chance to adjust themselves so that they can become productive in the new environment.
Job creation
How many new jobs has the corporate sector created since the war ended? In terms of economic development do we see any new development, new projects coming up other than what is being initiated by the state? Perhaps one or two factories, perhaps a refurbishment of a supermarket or restaurants or opening of a few Food Cities has taken place. But how many new jobs has the corporate world created in the new Sri Lanka?
Challenge corporates to drive economic development
Similarly others should challenge us, question us and ask what we have done towards building a new Sri Lanka. They should challenge us not only in terms of employment but in every other aspect that we can contribute towards economic development.
Our Brand must be challenged by international Brands if we are to become strong global players. To build an economy we must build strong brands and strong brands are built only through competition.
Through competition alone will an economy drive forward. Four months have passed since the conclusion of the war and we are still waiting. Are we waiting for hand outs and tax concessions? Do we need incentives to invest? No. As corporates we need to make a sacrifice.
In the last two and half decades we have felt that we as business must be protected and naturally the state protected entrepreneurs and industrialists through various taxation and duties.
But if we are to take our Brands to the world we need to break away from this fear of being challenged.
If we are to go out to the world and create strong brands we need to also permit within a controlled environment for international brands to come and challenge us locally. Cargills is prepared for this challenge. We all have to be prepared to challenge international brands in the local market and then venture out to the international market.
Look beyond Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka no matter how much our business grows we can only grow as much as the consumption of 20 million people. That would never make us global players. We have to look at the bigger opportunity of the 6 billion people. Unless we are able to take our brand to the international world we will not be a strong player. We need to encourage investment. We need to open our companies for investment.
On the other hand to attract international investment we also need to be mindful of governance, transparency.
There is a tendency in Sri Lanka to talk about governance when it comes to the State. But we ignore governance when it comes to the private sector. The world economy is at this position today because of lack of governance and transparency by CEO’s and individuals from companies.
We have to learn from this. We as publicly owned entities are as accountable as the state to our shareholders. We are as answerable.
However the general tendency in Sri Lanka is to point fingers at the State but ignore the lack of governance in the corporate world. We need to learn from the mistakes of global corporate giants and look inward at our own processes to take our country to the next level. |
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