24th Presidential Export Awards Ceremony on December 3 at the BMICH

The Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) is planning to hold the 24^rh Presidential Export Awards Ceremony for the financial years 2019/20 and 2020/21 on December 3 at the BMICH under the patronage of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Chairman/CEO of EDB Suresh D. de Mel highlighting the significance of this year's awards ceremony said that this year's awards ceremony will be held to recognise the country's best exporters for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 financial years. This year's awards will be presented in two main categories with 12 Overall awards, as well as 53 sectoral awards for products and services for each financial year, the EDB said in a media release.

In line with the new Government Policy Framework, the EDB has implemented new strategies to expand Sri Lanka's exports by introducing new markets (market diversification), innovative products (product diversification) and adding value to existing products. New overall awards and sectoral awards have been introduced by reviewing the Presidential Export Awards presented over the past few years.

Accordingly, overall awards such as “Best Exporter in Product Diversification”, “Best Value Added Exporter of the Year”, “Best Performing Exporter in Emerging Markets” and “Emerging Exporter of the Year” as well as new sectoral awards compared to last year have been introduced.

Furthermore, the selection of the "Best Exporter" for the Product and Services Sector Awards is more competitive as it evaluates not only export earnings but also several other criteria, such as value addition for exports, employment creation, market diversification, and growth of export earnings, the release said.

In selecting the awardees for the financial year 2020/21, the efforts made by the exporters to remain in the export sector under the COVID - 19 epidemic situation will also be taken into consideration.