Search Results for: Sri Lankan

INTRODUCTION 

ACCOUNTING used to be restricted to financially measurable matters of profit and loss; expenditure and revenue; taxes and subsidies; investment and liabilities. But the mathematical and statistical skills underpinning a solid set of books and filed accounts are today increasingly being used to measure the environmental and social sustainability of a product, input, production process and supply chain.…

INTRODUCTION

The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a reassessment of the model of relying on one or two outsourcing locations. It has demonstrated that when there is a major disruption caused by an emergency as serious as a pandemic, shipping and industrial processing can be disrupted.…

Japan may become a significant market for the halal food sector in future, predicts the Japan Halal Association, whose members are looking ahead to sustained growth once the Covid-19 pandemic ebbs. Faslin Mohammed Lafir, head of halal certification and international relations, of the Japan Halal Association, stressed that the country’s Muslim population is around 120,000 individuals at present, with an estimated 10,000 Japanese converting to the religion every year, boosting potential halal sales.…

The second-largest garment exporting country in the world, Bangladesh has grown its position as a key outsourcing hub since the 1980s.  

With a global market share of 6.26%, according to the World Trade Statistical Review 2021 (1), “The industry has come a long way,” said Md. …

A comprehensive study of 3,650 students from 55 counties worldwide has indicated that the expansion of online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic has not reduced the attraction of moving countries to undertake in-person higher education in foreign universities and colleges.

Indeed, the study, by IDP Connect, part of Australia-based international student recruitment leader IDP Education, showed that 79% of students questioned were only considering overseas on-campus options.…

The Bangladesh innerwear industry has been witnessing robust growth in the past decade and this outsourcing hub is now competing effectively with its major rival China. The production value of the country’s intimate wear jumped from US216 million in 2012 to US1.078 billion in 2021, according to a report from data service Statista (1).…

A successful apparel-sector worker vaccination programme – where over 90% of its employees have been jabbed with single dose and 70% double-jabbed since June to date – has helped drive Sri Lanka’s clothing export sales.

Between January to July (2021), the country’s apparel exports were at USD2.75 billion, up from USD2.27 billion in January-June 2020, Yohan Lawrence, Sri Lanka’s joint apparel association forum (JAAF) executive committee member told Just Style.…

Responding to the growing needs of an on-demand economy driven by small order quantities and nearshoring, Twinery – the innovation arm of Sri Lanka’s leading garment manufacturer MAS Holdings – has developed groundbreaking digital printing and coating solutions.

Last May (2020), Twinery introduced a new plasma-based chemical vapour deposition system adding coatings to textiles that offer functional benefits, such as water repellence, without using water.…

INTRODUCTION

The textile industry is one of the world’s oldest manufacturing sector, yet it is also one of the most dynamic, constantly reinventing itself. Today, the development of micro-factories might herald root-and-branch change in how the textile and clothing industry operates, a transformation driven by advances in digital textile printing.…

The world’s anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) system has come a long way since the G7 group of nations decided to launch the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in July 1989. But Australian researchers have claimed AML/CFT compliance costs USD300 billion and only nets USD3 billion of an estimated USD3 trillion in criminal funds generated annually (a 0.1% success rate).…

The suspension of orders by clothing brands because of Covid-19 has not just been a problem for apparel manufacturers – the suppliers of these companies, including textile manufacturers, weavers, finishers, yarn producers and even fibre makers, have all suffered. With work drying up for manufacturers, upstream suppliers have lost orders.…

INTRODUCTION

NEW technology can deliver effective maintenance strategies to clothing and textile manufacturers, helping them go beyond reactive and proactive maintenance, moving into the more sophisticated world of prediction. The goal is to deliver an optimum maintenance strategy that enables manufacturers to get the most value out of their plant and equipment by spending the least amount of time, resources and money to deliver effective performance.…

SINGLE use plastics bans being brought in across the world may not cover all nonwovens products, but they certainly are having an impact on the industry as it parses often complex rules coming into force.

A key piece of legislation is the European Union’s (EU) so-called ‘single use plastics directive’ (1) which has deadlines passing in 2021.…

SRI Lanka is making a significant step towards increasing its share of locally-sourced raw materials for clothing made in the country by setting up a fabric processing park – construction beginning in the first week of February.

Funded by the government’s investment promotion agency, the Board of Investment (BOI), its location is Eravur, Batticaloa, in the country’s Eastern Province.…

A new Transparency International (TI) survey has reported significant concern in 17 Asian countries (1) that corruption continues to be a problem or is getting worse, undermining equitable access to public services and trust in government. TI’s ‘Global Corruption Barometer – Asia’ (2) found 74% of the 20,000 people surveyed believe that government corruption is a major problem in their country, with 19% of citizens surveyed admitting to paying a bribe and 22% using personal connections when accessing public services in the previous year.…

THE PHILIPPINES garment industry is preparing to petition the European Commission, asking it not to consider calls for the country to lose its Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) access to European Union (EU) markets.

The call follows a resolution adopted by the European Parliament in late-September calling on the European Commission to temporarily withdraw Philippines access from the scheme because of human rights abuses.…

JUST when Sri Lanka was about to kickstart post-Covid-19 recovery of its critically important clothing sector, having managed the pandemic’s first wave with only 13 deaths, these plans have been sidelined by a deadly second wave of infections. And worse, cases have broken out among garment factory workers nationwide. …

THE ASIA nonwovens sector has been reaping the benefits of booming demand for protective medical materials during the Covid-19 crisis. But like the pandemic, this roaring demand will end, and nonwovens producers need to ready to a post-Covid-19 market.

This will mean reining in growth, but as David Price, founding partner of US-based management consultancy specialising in nonwovens Price Hanna Consultants, said, with regional nonwovens sales per person still low in global terms, the “market penetration for disposable and durable nonwovens in southeast Asia and China” is likely to grow regardless.…

If there is one subsector of technical textiles that is regarded as well suited to environment-friendly materials innovation, it is surely the agricultural textile (ag-tex) sector. This is indeed the case, with research and development specialists creating clever solutions allying the functional and sustainability benefits of ag-tex with new biodegradable and naturally-sourced fibre.…

COVID-19 has taken its toll on Sri Lanka’s textile and clothing sector, with exports forecast to plummet for 2021 (the financial year ending March) from a target of USD5.6 billion, by USD1.7 billion to USD3.9 billion, falling 30% year-on-year for April 2020 to March 2021, the country’s national clothing industry told just-style.…

AS a key part of the food production supply chain, the international can manufacturing and filling industry has largely stayed open, with some exceptions, during the Covid-19 crisis, not just in developed economies, but also in key emerging markets such as the BRICS countries.…

ROMANIA’S clothing and textile industry is facing a recruitment crunch and experts worry that it will struggle to find a strategy to ensure it can hire sustainably to ensure long-term growth. A survey from PwC’s HR benchmarking project Saratoga released last October (2019) concluded that Romania faces an “acute shortage of workforce”, needing about one million extra workers to sustain a 3.5% economic growth by 2023.…

THE MANY properties that have contributed to graphene being described as a ‘super material’ make it an increasingly attractive choice as an ingredient in a wide range of coatings with special functionalities say researchers and manufacturers. And, with Many of these properties offering environment-friendly and sustainable benefits, graphene is being considered as a key part of the coatings industries efforts to reduce carbon emissions and hence climate change.…

IMPROVING on performance in AML/CFT is never a simple process, and that is especially a case with a country such as Bulgaria which has had a long-standing corruption problem, causing this east European country to be under special monitoring by the European Commission from the day it joined the European Union (EU) in 2007.…

IN a bid to modernise Cambodia’s textile and garment sectors through digitalisation, the industry is introducing innovative new software next month (February) that will help improve efficiency by improving fabric handling and cutting down repeat clothing defects by almost half – in addition to making overall gains on factory productivity.…

Airbus is to pay out EUR3.6 billion (USD4 billion) under a trio of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) with British, French and United States authorities that were simultaneously agreed by national courts January 31 as part of a global resolution over bribes to clinch civil and military aircraft sales.…

HONG Kong has signed an avoidance of double taxation agreement with its neighbour Macao, designed to boost trade and investment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area of southern China. The deal will ensure that any Macao tax paid by Hong Kong residents earning income from Macao will be a tax credit in Hong Kong and vice versa for Macao residents.…

The US-China trade war that has been hindering commerce since 2018 has hit the Chinese clothing and textile export sector severely, but companies that have invested in manufacturing sites outside China have been better protected, Esquel CEO John Cheh has told just-style.…

THE HEAD of the Kenyan export processing zone that will be hosting a new factory run by Sri Lankan apparel and textile manufacturer MAS Holdings, has told just-style that the new plant will involve the creation of between 3,000 and 3,500 jobs directly, when it starts operations by January 20.…

SOUTH Asian clothing manufacturing hub Sri Lanka needs to better accredit its clothing sector workers’ skills through government-certified institutions to help its manufacturers trade on its higher skilled and ethical production methods to increase exports, clothing industry body, Joint Apparel Association Forum of Sri Lanka (JAAFSL) secretary general Tuly Cooray told just-style.…

African garment and textile manufacturers are trying to create more synergy to better integrate the supply chain within the continent, but North African producers still dominate, and are expanding capacity, particularly in Egypt, say participants at a major regional industry meeting.…

African manufacturers are trying to integrate sustainability in their textile and fashion supply chains as retailers demand compliance with increasingly high standards fuelled by consumer pressure. But to do so, manufacturers are asking for assistance from international organisations to implement change.…

Jordanian garment manufacturers and supporting institutions like the International Labour Organization’s Better Work Jordan, plan to introduce garment design training to add value to a sector that is primarily ‘cut and sew’.

Jordan exported USD1.8 billion’s worth of garments last year, just over half to the USA, at USD1.02 billion, but designs are primarily provided by buyers and retailers, with minimal design in-country.…

COSMETICS companies serving the south Asia market may grumble that they are facing challenges, but the reality is the region’s emerging markets offer growth rates that can only be dreamt of in richer countries.

India’s beauty and personal care product market is a case in point.…

WHILE the spectre of Brexit looms over the British economy and hence its beauty markets, the fundamentals of its personal care product sector live on. As the UK ponders leaving the European Union (EU), maybe in October, commentators often cast a wary eye at Germany to see how this economic engine of the EU is performing – maybe to check whether Brexit is as big a business mistake as many experts warn.…

THE INTENSIFYING trade war between the USA and China has proved to be an opportunity for some larger Chinese clothing manufacturing firms, some of which had already built capacity overseas, notably in southeast Asia, and Vietnam especially. These companies have been able to adjust to the worsening tariff barriers to the US market for China-sourced exports, whereas smaller companies unable to afford new SE Asia operations have suffered.…

INDIAN knitwear exporters are hoping for a windfall of orders from the US following a spurt in client enquiries, which industry leaders believe are linked to the US-China trade dispute and the latest tariff hike on Chinese clothing and textile exports to America.…

EVERY manufacturing and agricultural industry has an impact on climate change – and the tobacco sector is no different. Faced with long-standing criticism of the health impact of its products, the tobacco industry is now facing attacks that its work generates carbon emissions and hence climate change.…

INDIAN knitwear exporters are hoping for a windfall of orders from the US following a spurt in client enquiries, which industry leaders believe are linked to the US-China trade dispute and the latest tariff hike on Chinese clothing and textile exports to America.…

THE PASSING of the USD5 billion annual clothing export milestone by Sri Lanka is especially significant, says its industry association, because it has been achieved while maintaining an “ethical and reliable brand”.

The country’s total clothing exports reached USD5.05 billion last year (2018 calendar year), posting an annual gain of 4.97% year-on-year, Joint Apparel Association Forum Sri Lanka (JAAFSL) secretary general, Tuly Cooray told just-style.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has included four American external territories – Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa – on a proposed blacklist of weak AML/CFT jurisdictions released today (Feb 13).

Brussels’ updated list includes 12 countries that are viewed with concern by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the Bahamas, Botswana, North Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and Yemen. …

WITH the Asia-Pacific coatings market and industry being one of the most dynamic worldwide, experiencing continuous robust growth, the potential for additives to give brands an edge in seizing market share is increasingly important.

Backed by buoyant construction, automotive and marine industries across the Asia Pacific, the region’s paint and coatings additives market is showing promising growth, analysts say.…

With manufacturing technology advancing at an ever-faster pace, sports apparel companies need to constantly look for ways to embrace new techniques to compete in a constantly changing landscape, an international industry meeting has been told.

Sustainability, blockchain and Industry 4.0 are three of the most important trends being considered by brands and their suppliers, and they were focal points at the sixth World Manufacturers Forum (WMF), organised by the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from December 11-12.…

CHINESE exports of knitted fabrics have been hit by major USA duties in the latest round of tit-for-tat tariffs imposed in the countries’ ongoing trade war. China exported USD470 million’s worth of knitted and crocheted fabrics to the USA in 2017, according to international trade data.…

SRI LANKA’S knitwear industry is insisting that despite the country’s current political turmoil over who should lead its government, its business is operating smoothly, noting that it had managed to maintain commerce during the country’s 26 years-long civil war that ended in 2009.…

BY this time next year, there could be as many as 30 garment manufacturing factories that are owned and operated by Asia-based companies in Haiti, according to Georges Sassine, president of the Association des Industries d’Haïti (ADIH).

The Caribbean country has seen an influx of Asian-owned businesses since early 2017 and Sassine said there are presently almost 20 such garment factories in Haiti.…

Malaysia’s newly elected government, in power from May, led by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, came to power in part as to clear draft and corruption from the country. How well is it performing? Poorna Rodrigo reports.

The Mahathir government has pledged a whole raft of measures to fight corruption.…

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) will take over a controlling stake of Sri Lanka’s second international airport, Mattala Rajapaksa International. With few flights currently arriving ore departing. The AAI will have a 70% stake, with the remaining 30% expected to be owned by the Sri Lankan government, which would retain control over what airlines landed and departed from Mattala Rajapaksa, in southern Sri Lanka.…

AS China’s retreat from mass market clothing production continues, Bangladesh knitters are eyeing another added value knitwear niche – sportswear. Following the industry’s success in boosting sales within the profitable lingerie segment, Bangladesh manufacturers are ramping up production in sports apparels, although some experts say that work is needed on boosting its supply chain, particularly of manmade fibres.…

India’s new Goods and Services Tax (GST) system has severely disrupted tax refund payments and duty drawbacks to exporters, leading to higher production costs and a 30% dip in knitwear exports, experts have warned.

Since its adoption in July 2017, the new value added tax system has been criticised for its complexity – with the knitwear sector having to deal with four separate tax brackets – and forcing small business to invest in online accounting infrastructure that they cannot afford and are ill equipped to manage.…

PAKISTAN’S government is considering a fresh package of incentives for the country’s exporters, including the key textile and clothing sector, which is particularly interested in the fact officials are examining reducing energy bills. Industry insiders have long argued high energy costs in Pakistan are one of the key factors for increasing production expenses, reducing competitivity and hence overseas sales.…

Vietnamese textile and garment industry officials have capped a bumper 2017 with forecasts for further robust export growth this year if it can overcome challenges from neighbouring country textile sectors by investing in skills, equipment and automation. 

Le Tien Truong, general director of the Vietnam National Garment and Textile Group (Vinatex), predicting a year-on-year increase of 10% in export value, to USD34 billion, from 10.23% annual growth in 2017 when exports totalled USD31 billion.…

WITH full supply chains and innovative products, Thailand’s knitwear industry is thriving, making the country a nucleus for fashion manufacturing in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. Thai Garment Manufacturers Association (TGMA) executive director Chartchai Singhadeja said: “Thailand’s strength lies in our full-value supply chains, starting from fibres to yarns and fabrics, then apparel and clothing within the fashion industry.”…

LURED by a shifting global market and better margins, Bangladesh’s apparel producers are rushing into the lingerie space, predicting Chinese manufacturers will secure fewer export orders for these lines as their costs rise.

This new niche opportunity for the Bangladesh industry is fortuitous, as it dovetails with the country’s textiles and clothing makers’ core strategy of moving from their traditional low-cost growth pillars, such as t-shirts, shirts, trousers, jackets and sweaters.…

HOW will the Indian food industry evolve in the next decade? If the last decade was about India opening up to the global palate, the next decade is definitely about health and wellness, industry executives said at the India Food Forum 2018, held at Mumbai from January 17 to 19.…

High on the agenda of Dr Oetker India managing director and chief executive officer Oliver Mirza is making India a major production hub, not just for manufacturing packaged foods scoring sales in India’s growing markets, but also for exports.

In a wide-ranging interview with just-food on the sidelines of the India Food Forum, staged in Mumbai last month (January 17-19), Mirza said that by 2020, Dr Oetker India was targeting sales of Indian Rupees INR10 billion (USD155 million) of which its sub-brand FunFoods will account for INR5 billion (USD 77.50 million).…

SINGAPORE’S Accounting Standards Council (ASC) has issued the Singapore Financial Reporting Standards (International) (SFRS(I)s), the city state’s equivalent of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). This new set of rules will cover Singapore-incorporated listed company accounts for annual periods beginning January 1, 2018, and onwards.…

THE SECURITIES Commission Malaysia (SC) has issued Guidelines on Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) Funds to boost the growth of green investments in the country. The advice follows Malaysia issuing in July the world’s first green sukuk (Islamic bond).

The new advice applies to conventional as well as Islamic sustainable finance, including unit trust funds, real estate trust funds, exchange-traded funds, and venture capital and private equity funds.…

AFTER introducing digital printing and leading Bangladesh’s knitwear sector by example, the country’s knitting major, the Knit Concern Group, has said it will ramp up its capacity to digitally print 1 million metres of fabric monthly by 2022. Presently, the knitter, based in Narayanganj, near Dhaka, can digitally print 260,000 metres of fabric a month.…

THE PAINT and coatings industry in south Asia maybe thriving, but regional trade between countries is not – being restricted to exports of pigments, resins, solvents and additives from India to its neighbouring countries. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan, as well as regional giant India, are all members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), but they import most of their paint and coating raw materials.…

HONG KONG and Saudi Arabia has struck an agreement on avoiding double taxation so any Saudi Arabian tax paid by Hong Kong companies will be credited against tax payable on the same profits in the special administrative region. The same would apply to Saudi companies paying tax in Hong Kong.…

SRI Lanka’s Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), at Katunayake, near the capital Colombo, has received its first A380 Airbus arrival. An Emirates flight from Dubai landing on BIA’s recently resurfaced and upgraded runway. The A380 replaced the usual B777 aircraft Emirates flies to Sri Lanka, allowing airport executives, senior politicians, trade partners and media to tour the plane.…

AS Ethiopia rapidly emerges as a key clothing and textile hub of Africa, the country has been making impressive strides as a knitwear manufacturing and sourcing centre, attracting the attention of global clothing majors.

“International buyers are beginning to buy knitted clothes from Ethiopia including Zara, Tesco, H&M [Hennes & Mauritz] and Decathlon,” said Fassil Tadesse, president of the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturing Association (ETGAMA).…

EXECUTIVES within Sri Lanka’s apparel sector predict its exporters can generate an additional USD400 to USD500 million in annual sales because of the country regaining the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) trade concession with the European Union (EU).

This happened on May 19, (2017), almost seven years since Sri Lanka lost this trade access status (in August 2010) because of human rights violations during the previous government of ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa.…

Just days since floods and landslides ravaged parts of Sri Lanka, the country’s apparel manufacturers are warning they may need more time to honour current orders, but predict the sector will recover so that 2017 export receipts are not seriously affected.…

Demand is growing for a major international programme designed to support developing countries build up their tax audit capacity and – critically – the funding is there to meet that need. Launched as a joint initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in July 2015 after an initial pilot phase, Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) sees tax experts work side-by-side with local officials in developing and emerging markets.…

THE PLANNED introduction of mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) by the South African Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) has sparked widespread dissention within the country’s business and accounting communities This is despite that the reform’s goal is to strengthen auditor independence and audit quality and that there are some calls for the move to be brought forward from the current introduction date of April 1, 2023.…

A MALAYSIAN government scheme encouraging foreign investors to buy property in Malaysia may have led to thousands of Bangladeshis breaching their country’s strict capital control restrictions.

A total of 3,493 Bangladeshis has participated in the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) long-term residency programme since 2003, according to statistics updated in December (2016) – 10.7% of all investors taking part worldwide.…

The demand for processed and packaged food is growing fast among India’s young, often aspirational and fast-expanding population. And this has made Nestlé India target a double digit annual growth in upcoming years. To realise this goal, the company is steadily introducing premium international products into India, such as its impending launch of Alpino chocolates this month (October 2016).…

A KEY women’s business group in Pakistan has voiced concerns about a fall in textile exports from the country, given the industry is not only the largest foreign exchange earning sector of the country, but a key employer of female workers nationwide.…

The Vietnamese textile sector may face challenges thanks to a newly approved national minimum wage, industry insiders say, with specialists suggesting different rates for higher skilled workers in upstream suppliers, but other worrying about a loss of competitiveness in clothing manufacturing.…

Sri Lanka’s cosmetic and beauty product manufacturers are becoming increasingly anxious over the lack of sales regulations, promoting significant volumes of lower grade cosmetic imports, putting local manufacturers at risk. 

Until July 2015, there was a specific authority to oversee cosmetic products being imported as well as distributed in the country.…

Ethiopia’s government is promoting what it says is Africa’s largest eco-industrial park dedicated to textile and garment production. The Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP), boasting state-of-the-art water recycling facilities, has attracted major textile producers from Asia and the US including American clothing giant Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH).…

The brutal anti-crime crackdown promised by the Philippines’ President-elect Rodrigo Duterte may result in the European Union (EU) withdrawing its Generalised System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) tariff-reduction scheme from the country, weakening Philippines textile and garment exports. Duterte had in early June been subject of scathing criticism from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for endorsing killings of journalists as well as for offering large bounties to security forces and the general public to eliminate drug traffickers in extrajudicial killings.…

MALAYSIA’S textile sector will grow by at least 30% thanks to a surge in investments in its textile sector when the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement comes into force, Malaysian Knitting Manufacturers Association (MKMA) executive director Rebecca Chiang has predicted to WTiN.com.…

Bangladesh’s GPH Ispat Ltd has announced it is building a major integrated steel plant in south-eastern Chittagong city, as the country’s steel sector continues to develop its billet production capacity. The company says is expecting robust demand for long products and billets enabling their production as the Bangladesh government responds to continuing economic growth by financing public infrastructure projects.  …

PAKISTAN’S textile sector is struggling as exports are declining, with producers unable to compete with regional countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam,

Jawed Bilwani, chairman of the Pakistan Apparel Forum has told WTiN.com. In an interview he warned that looking at trade data for financial year 2014-15 compared to 2013-2014: “Our textile exports are declining persistently and are in a state of emergency.”…

SPECIAL trade access to developed countries is always a boon to emerging market suppliers, and the European Union’s (EU) GSP+ system is especially sought after, and – noted a recent European Commission report – widely utilised.

GSP+ suspends EU duties on 66% of EU tariff lines, while for standard GSP, these same duties are merely reduced.…

Devendra Chawla, group president of food and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) at India’s Future Group, has a clear view of how the Indian branded food sector is and has been developing: while Indian consumers love to try new products, they prefer them to be spiced with some familiar flavours from the past.…

Sri Lanka’s government remains positive about the possibility of regaining its Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) concession status from the European Union (EU), which would probably boost the country’s knitwear exports. This privileged trade access status might help the country’s clothing industry overall achieve an ambitious target of earning USD8.5 billion from exports by 2020.…

The president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bahrain has told just-style he is working closely with the US Congress to secure a Tariff Preference Level (TPL) extension for the Gulf island kingdom this year. It would allow Bahrain exporters to continue selling apparel and textiles, among other goods, into the USA tariff-free. …

Sustainability improvements in the Asian outsourced clothing and textile sector are far from being the sole preserve of China. In Cambodia, Tonlé, a sustainable garment-making firm based in Phnom Penh, obtains 90% of its fabric from factory cut-out and 10% through sustainable suppliers to make a zero-waste clothing line.…

IN a fast-growing emerging economy such as Bangladesh, companies and consumers alike can sometimes play fast-and-loose with the truth to hide financial wrongdoing and commit frauds, but they will have to reckon with Bangladesh’s Comptroller and Auditor General Masud Ahmed and his staff.…

Bangladesh’s top auditor understands only too well the key role strong auditing can play in an emerging economy such as his own country – for good or ill. Indeed, he does not mince his words when he recalls the role auditors played in Bangladesh’s 2011 capital market collapse that ruined millions of small investors.…

After years of strong economic growth, salaries of Chinese clothing makers have increased, resulting in more expensive Chinese textiles and clothing manufacturing. But while cheaper outsourcing locations such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and India have picked up the slack, experts both in China and abroad have yet to buy into the notion that garment production is dramatically shifting out of China.…

SRI Lanka’s newly elected government has developed plans to bring more business to Sri Lanka’s loss-making second international airport, the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport.

The vice chairman of the government owned Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd, Sanjeewa Wijeratne said authorities are looking at converting land around the airport into an industrial zone, using the airport as a military air force base, and redirecting international flight to exploit the airport’s maximum one million passenger capacity.    …

The United States’ African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) has helped boost many African countries’ apparel and textile sector, giving them duty-free and quota-free access to the US market. And while many are keen to see the act renewed before its expiration this September 30, some countries have benefited more than others.…

The new Sri Lankan government has started negotiations with the European Union (EU) in a bid to re-secure membership of Europe’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP +) scheme. If successful, the move would see EU tariffs fall for Sri Lankan clothing and textile exports.…

The Philippines’ once formidable knitwear sector has been shrinking in size in the past two decades, but the Pacific archipelago’s inclusion in the European Union’s (EU) Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) preferential tariff scheme from January 1 is now filling remaining manufacturers with some hope for another heyday.…

A call by Sri Lanka’s newly elected government on the private sector to increase the salaries of all employees including garment sector workers by Sri Lankan Rupees LKR2,500 (USD18.79)  per month has yet be accepted by garment sector employers. Industry wages in Sri Lanka are influenced by a wages board of industry, trade union and government representatives, which is meeting to discuss the request, which came from Sri Lanka’s finance minister Ravi Karunanayake during the government’s interim budget on January 29, which followed its election on January 8

The secretary general of the country’s Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), Tuli Cooray has branded the government request “principally not right”.…

Projects are underway in India to install captive solar photovoltaic power systems in the country’s airports, exploiting innovative funding models and long term power purchase agreements. However, the country’s grid power operators are refusing to purchase any excess power.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which is owned by the Indian government, plans to generate 50 megawatts (MW) of electric power from solar plants at 30 airports by the end of 2015.…

GROWTH in Sri Lanka’s paints and coatings sector is slowing down after years of rapid growth following the end of the civil war in May 2009. Producers are now facing greater competition and introducing innovations to attract new consumers.

Ruwan Weerasinghe, the secretary of the Paint Manufacturers Association of Sri Lanka, and director of Lankem Ceylon, which sells the popular paint brand Robbialac, said his company registered a 20% year-on-year growth after the war.…

CAMBODIA’S “high cost of electricity  – the third highest in south-east Asia after Singapore and Myanmar – along with low skills are keeping the country away from producing  textiles”, the World Bank chief economist for the east Asia and the Pacific region, Sudhir Shetty has told WTiN.…

Sourcing trends in fast fashion in Europe and north America are in flux, being affected by the economic downturn, changes in consumer behaviour and growing awareness of industry practices, especially in the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh last year.…

THE ASSOCIATION of Southeast Asian Nations – ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) has announced that the ASEAN framework for cross-border offerings of collective investment schemes (CIS) is now operational in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The regulatory system allows fund managers working from these member jurisdictions to offer locally constituted schemes, such as unit trust funds, to retail investors in other member jurisdictions, using a streamlined authorisation process.…

THE ETHICAL traits of Sharia-compliant, or Islamic, financing, such as not allowing interest or investments in gambling and tobacco, have made sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) and green funds an obvious extension for the sector. But with Islamic finance already being a niche market, compared to conventional financing, initiatives to diversify into SRIs have struggled over the past several years.…

Swiss stainless steel shapes maker Montanstahl AG’s first ever plant in Asia is likely to be set up in Sri Lanka, the company has told Steel First. “If the general conditions are satisfactory like industrial site, incentives, electricity supply, then we will invest,” Wolfgang Stumm, vice president who heads research and development in the family-owned business said. …

More than 600 dying and printing units in a small Indian town of Pali, in Rajasthan state, face closure over water pollution concerns associated with 34 million litres per day of industrial emissions being discharged from four water treatment plants into the nearby Bandi River.…

The increasingly fluid global market for outsourcing enables brands to switch countries for their manufacturing needs, and it is in the interest of exporting countries to make it easy for them.

Cambodia’s garment industry has been the beneficiary of sourcing shifts from more expensive countries such as China in recent years, attracting manufacturers with some of the lowest labour costs in the world, a past reputation for reasonable working conditions and favoured access to US and European Union (EU) markets.…

THE COSMETICS and beauty product sector in Sri Lanka has recorded a gradual growth in the past few years, with help from the government boosting local manufacturers, according to industry experts.

While being a small sector in comparison to the country’s heavy industries, there are almost 4,000 cosmetics and beauty care products sold on the local market, according to the Cosmetics, Devices and Drugs Regulatory Authority (CDDA), a government agency regulating the sector, operating under the health ministry.…

THE SINGAPORE Parliament has beefed up the powers of the country’s accounting regulator, especially over corporate service providers. MPs passed an accounting and corporate regulatory authority (amendment) bill, which will insist corporate service providers be registered as filing agents, able to help companies with their establishment, legal advice, regulatory filings, office hosting and secretarial services.…

Sri Lanka’s leading aluminum profiles manufacturer Alumex Group hopes to raise USD6.41 million via an initial public offering made today (on March 6), which will make way for the company to finance a series of expansion plans including setting up a powder coating plant and acquire related dyeing manufacturing equipment.…

Sri Lanka’s customs officials have launched a full scale investigation aimed at cracking down on copper scrap smuggling, after two export-bound containers of copper scrap worth more than USD172,189 were seized in late January.

The two containers weighing 32,140 kilogrammes were being exported to Singapore under false documentation claiming that the cargo was ‘plastic hangers’.…

Sri Lanka could be relaxing its restrictions on foreign investment in the steel industry as construction projects aimed at building 35,000 hotel rooms across the country by 2016 get underway.  Its government announced last June that it would curtail steel-related foreign investments to encourage local manufacturers to create locally-owned steel-making capacity, but the hotel-fuelled construction boom is generating demand that local manufacturers may struggle to meet.…

Sri Lanka’s apparel and textile sector exported a record USD4.3 billion in 2013 and its Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) has predicted overseas sales will continue rising this year.

Its president Noel Piyatilake told just-style said the industry is targeting an ambitious mark of USD6 billion exports by 2020, making Sri Lanka one of the world’s top 10 apparel exporting countries.…

BANGLADESH is far from being the only emerging market outsourcer that has had problems with factory safety and auditing. Elsewhere in Asia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and especially Cambodia have had their own problems.

Indeed Cambodia has been wracked by industrial disputes overworking conditions in its textile and clothing sector.…

INDIAN publishers are adopting a smarter more holistic approach to fight book piracy and are focusing on awareness campaigns to tackle the problem.

“Educational authorities like the ministry of human resource development and other stakeholders should join hands with publishers to make people understand that there is some sanctity to copyrighted knowledge, which should be respected,” said Mr Sesh Seshadri, secretary of The Association of Publishers in India (API).…

SOURCING in Asia has been a merry-go-round for many buyers in recent years. As the era of low-cost Chinese manufacturing draws more or less to a close, several countries have leveraged their low cost labour to capture a significant volume of the world’s lower end knitwear manufacturing, while others have sought to extend their reach into higher value-added manufacturing by investing in infrastructure and training.…

SOURCING in Asia has been a merry-go-round for many buyers in recent years. As the era of low-cost Chinese manufacturing draws more or less to a close, several countries have leveraged their low cost labour to capture a significant volume of the world’s lower end knitwear manufacturing, while others have sought to extend their reach into higher value-added manufacturing by investing in infrastructure and training.…

THE TAIWAN textile dyeing and finishing sectors have never quite recovered from the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) abolition of global textile quotas in 2005. It resulted in the closure of many stand-alone units by making their labour-intensive manufacturing processes on the relatively wealthy island uncompetitive.…

BY JENS KASTNER, in Taipei

THE TAIWAN textile dyeing and finishing sectors have never quite recovered from the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) abolition of global textile quotas in 2005. It resulted in the closure of many stand-alone units by making their labour-intensive manufacturing processes on the relatively wealthy island uncompetitive.…

Steel importers in Sri Lanka are expecting a decline in sales next year following the government’s decision to raise import duty on steel products, in an effort to encourage more local production.

Subramaniam Sritharan, import manager at Janatha Steels, one Sri Lanka’s leading steel importing companies told Steel First that his company is anticipating a 25% drop in sales from next year due to the increase.…

Sri Lanka’s aluminium industry has welcomed a government decision to increase import taxes from next year on most imports of aluminium products, processed and semi-processed, while reducing it on basic aluminium imports.

Pramuk Dediwela, director of the Alumex Group, a leading aluminium company in Sri Lanka told Metal Bulletin that the changes, whose exact details have yet to be announced, would benefit Sri Lankan aluminium manufacturers.…

WINNERS AND LOSERS

RETAIL

WINNERS

ASOS

Fashion retailer ASOS showed online convenience and price are still a winning combination with shoppers. The UK-based online retailer continued its impressive trajectory this year, announcing pre-tax profit had reached GBP54.7m (US$88.3m) for the year ending 31 August, compared to GBP40m in the same period of last year, with retail sales jumping 40% to GBP753.8m, up from GBP537.9m last year. …

THE LAST few years have brought significant changes to the apparel sourcing landscape in Asia. The era of Chinese low-cost apparel manufacturing is well behind us, and several countries have stepped up to claim their part of the manufacturing pie.

Apparel industry analysts say that although China’s dominance continues, a clear segmentation in Asia is now taking place.…

Ahmad Darwish, chairman of the ACCA UAE (United Arab Emirates) members’ advisory committee (UAE MAC) and manager of the management accounting team at DP World UAE region.

“The UAE is becoming a more developed economy like the USA and Europe.…

THE HIGHLY diverse and emerging markets of the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA) face major challenges in bringing financial services, accounting and auditing up to international standards. They are often lacking qualified professionals and sometimes overly reliant on expatriate expertise.…

Botswana’s first private university, the Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (Limkokwing Botswana), has continued to flex its muscles in this diamond-rich Southern Africa nation, taking advantage of a fast growing tertiary education sector. Botswana’s college and university student (aged 18-24) enrollment has grown from 11.4% in 2007/08 to 16.4% in 2012, or 46,613 students.…

Battle lines have been drawn across the international palm oil industry as its companies prepare to comply with the incoming European Union (EU) food information regulation No 1169/2011, which comes into force from December 13, 2014, and requires product labels to list types of vegetable oil used in food.…

While many companies may be looking for strategies to exit China as its as labour and manufacturing costs rise, that is certainly not the case for John Cheh, vice chairman and CEO of Hong Kong-based quality cotton shirt manufacturer Esquel Group.…

While small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan’s knitwear sector have significant manufacturing capacity, they have yet to harness their full potential, according to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Pakistan exported USD2.3 billion’s worth of knitwear in 2011 says the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, and many producers are small.…

THE SRI Lanka knitwear industry Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) has been pushing the island’s government for reforms to help the sector continue its current growth. Tuli Cooray, secretary general of the Sri Lanka Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) told Knitting International: “Last year from our total exports, the knitwear amounted to almost 47 per cent, a sharp increase from a share of 34 per cent in 2002.…

THE MALDIVES may best be known a tropical paradise with rare beauty, but this south Asian archipelago is also a hotbed for terror financing and money laundering, analysts fear. The country is now attempting to strengthen weak anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) laws that have created a “magnet effect for foreign organisations to pour money into local extremist groups,” warned Jean-Charles Brisard, US based terrorism financing expert and former chief investigator for the 9/11 families’ lawsuits against Al Qaeda financiers.…

WHETHER improved transparency in clothing supply chains will be enough to guarantee a sustainable future for outsourcers in south Asia remains to be seen, but a conference staged in Sri Lanka last week (Oct 10) heard plenty of calls for improved openness.…

AN INTERNATIONAL clothing and textile conference has heard how the growing retail market in the Asia-Pacific region may enable emerging economies such as Sri Lanka to realise ambitious dreams to become regional production hubs.

Kurt Cavano – founder/vice chairman & chief strategy officer of cloud computing company GT Nexus addressing the South Asian Apparel Leadership Forum, held in Colombo on October 12, noted: “The top six retailers that are growing are not in North America, it is in the Asia Pacific.…

THE MUCH publicised talks to strike a south-south free trade agreement (FTA) between the world’s largest clothing and textile exporter, China, and upcoming niche outsourcer Sri Lanka is sparking intense debate about its potential impact.

While the secretary-general of Sri Lanka’s Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), Tuli Cooray, is upbeat about the proposed agreement, senior economists Dr Saman Kelegama and Dr Harsha de Silva have urged caution.…

THE SRI Lankan government wants to borrow an additional USD150 million from the Export-Import Bank of China to fund rising costs for building the new Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport. China’s official Xinhua news agency and Sri Lanka newspapers reported that the money would fund unexpectedly high construction bills for the airport, which opened this March (2013).…

Sri Lanka’s garment industry is targeting higher-end Chinese consumers, with total apparel exports to China growing twenty-fold – from USD0.7 million in 2010 to USD15 million in 2012, according to the country’s Joint Apparel Association Forum of Sri Lanka. (JAAF)

In China, a new market has emerged for top quality local brands, the JAAF said in a statement, adding: “The high level of GDP [gross domestic product] growth and rising per capita income has widened the middle class there.”…

THE INDIAN apparel industry has made progress with backward integration over last five years but exporters rely too heavily on refunds of custom duties when re-exporting apparel based on fabrics and fibres bought outside the country, a Li & Fung India executive told a New Delhi conference on Friday (July 19).…

To meet apparel and textile brands’ desire to move into fast fashion, manufacturers have begun to embrace new production processes that improve efficiency and performance. Apparel and textile manufacturers have been slower than many other manufacturing industries to embrace supply chain improvements in speed, but are now succumbing to pressure from brands moving into fast fashion retail.…

India’s new textiles minister Kavuru Sambasiva Rao told an international textile conference in New Delhi on Friday he wants the textile sector to be relieved from rigid labour laws that prevent manufacturers working 24 hours-a-day. Rao, who was appointed last month (June), said that he is pushing for the Indian cabinet to approve new legislation in the southern state of Karnataka that would give the industry more flexibility in laying-off workers and to allow women to work night shifts in factories.…

INVESTORS have shown faith in the long term prospects of the Bangladesh clothing and textile sector, with four garment factories costing nearly USD50 million to build starting operations in Bangladesh’s Comilla Export Processing Zone this year (EPZ), its general manager MD Abdus Sobhan told just-style.…

CHINA and Japan offer two contrasting case studies in the punishment of fraud: while China is under pressure to dial down penalties from their past severity; in Japan, there have been moves to make punishments tougher.

Certainly China cannot get much tougher, given the death penalty is available to judges for fraud.…

Emerging markets, with their major outsourcing sectors, offer an excellent marketplace for operational software vendors.

This is especially the case as American and European markets mature.

In China, textile and clothing manufacturers are not known for their heavy IT investment, but the financial crisis of 2008 has slowly pushed them into adopting management software such as ERP and PLM to cut costs through optimising their operations, said Patrick Hu, sales director at the Huansi International Group, a Hong Kong-based software vendor specifically targeting Chinese manufacturers.…

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solutions have become powerful and numerous, allowing apparel companies to manage vast amounts of complex data under one umbrella, from finance, stock and manufacturing processes to distribution. Driven by the need to leverage this information and obtain even greater precision and speed in time to market, in recent years many ERP packages have come to include modules specifically tailored for the clothing industry, either as an add-on package or an integration with a product lifecycle management (PLM) system.…

Malaysia’s textile and clothing industry is planning to focus on three key areas – higher value fashion, dyeing and finishing, and technical textiles – to sustain strong growth and continue to compete with significantly lower-cost competition elsewhere in Asia.

The country’s textile and apparel exports grew 28.4% to USD3.8 billion in 2011, according to the Malaysian Textile Manufacturers Association (MTMA), with a further significant increase expected in 2012.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ, IN COLOMBO

A major expansion plan has been announced by the Ceylon Steel Corporation Ltd, which is to build the country’s first galvanized iron (GI) pipe mill with a manufacturing capacity of 3,500-4,000 metric tonnes per month. The company said it also plans to establish a new rolling mill with a capacity of manufacturing 20,000 metric tonnes of steel per month and a wire mesh mill.…

BY MARIANI DEWI

BRANCH campuses of established western universities can be major prizes for emerging market higher education systems – but attracting these institutions is not easy, even for economically dynamic countries such as Malaysia.

There are still only six branch campuses in this south-east Asian country.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI

GYPSUM producers and users have been key beneficiaries of the slow liberalisation of trade controls between India and Pakistan, Industrial Minerals can report. The Wagah border post linking the Indian state and Pakistani province of Punjab – a region divided in 1947 when Indian and Pakistan became independent, now processes a roaring trade in Pakistani gypsum.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI

India’s fast growing personal care products industry – particularly its cosmetics portion – is waking up to the major potential of the country’s rural and semi-urban markets. Major players are targeting these new aspiring consumers with innovative campaigns and targeted products and are set to reap handsome returns.…

BY POORNA RODRIGO AND MUNZA MUSTAQ, IN COLOMBO

Of course the BRICs countries are far from being the only emerging market suppliers for the global apparel sector – and a knot of competitors such as Bangladesh and Vietnam have long been vying for business.…

BY POORNA RODRIGO

A WAVE of high profile corruption cases and a growing range of commercial crimes have swept the South Asian archipelago of Maldives. Some cases have prompted Interpol red notices while others have run into long-drawn court battles, hurting investor confidence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A WORLD Bank assessment has concluded the abolition of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) multi-fibre agreement (MFA) on textile trade quotas failed to deliver wealth to Cambodian and Sri Lankan textile and clothing workers. In fact, by most measures, the analysis concludes the 2005 liberalisation left these employees worse off, especially women.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

The European Union’s (EU) anti-fraud unit has hailed the breaking of an international conspiracy to export China-made iron and steel tube and pipe fittings via other Asian countries to evade 58.6% EU anti-dumping duties usually levied on these products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A RESTRICTIVE open skies agreement has been negotiated between the European Commission and Sri Lanka that incorporates existing bilateral civil aviation agreements struck with individual European Union (EU) member states. The agreement includes deals previously struck by Sri Lanka with Austria, Belgium, Britain, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RETAIL – WINNERS AND LOSERS

WINNERS

MARKS & SPENCER

Times may still be tough in its home British market, but M&S showed forward-thinking foresight in 2011- on sourcing transparency and the environment: potential key issues for future consumers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank has publicly praised Timor-Leste for being the first Asia-Pacific country to formally comply with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) on disclosing oil and gas revenues. Speaking in the capital Dili, bank managing director Sri Mulyani Indrawati said it allowed the country to "manage its precious oil revenues for…future security and prosperity…"

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, DAVE YIN and WANG FANGQING

A GOOD deal of excitement has been created by the announcement this week in the UK academic journal Nature Geoscience that significant deposits of rare earths have been found in the Pacific Ocean floor.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA is known for its rich history of garment making traditions; however, its knitwear manufacturing centres have been facing serious labour shortages of late – leading to the underutilisation of capacity, spiralling costs and even relocation of some factories to more rural areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZIL and Argentina are among almost 100 countries expected to lose tariff breaks for their knitwear exports to the European Union (EU), under a planned reform of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) system.

The European Commission announced yesterday (May 10) it wanted to focus import duty concessions on poorer countries and so henceforth those regarded by the World Bank as high or upper middle income states would no longer qualify from January 2014.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Iran are among almost 100 countries expected to lose tariff breaks for their plastics exports to the European Union (EU), under a planned reform of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) system.

The European Commission announced yesterday (May 10) it wanted to focus import duty concessions on poorer countries and so henceforth those regarded by the World Bank as high or upper middle income states would no longer qualify from January 2014.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ARGENTINA, Uruguay and Iran are among almost 100 countries expected to lose tariff breaks for their food exports to the European Union (EU), under a planned reform of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) system, which lowers EU import duties for emerging market and developing countries for more 6,200 tariff lines, including many food products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AMERICAN prosecutors have succeeded in using wiretap evidence usually used to fight organised crime, to convict a hedgefund executive for netting USD63.8 million in illegal inside trades. Sri Lankan native Raj Rajaratnam, founder of Wall Street hedgefund Galleon, was found guilty on 14 counts of insider trading at a New York district court: he is appealing.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZIL and Argentina are among almost 100 countries expected to lose tariff breaks for their textile and clothing exports to the European Union (EU), under a planned reform of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) system.

The European Commission announced yesterday (May 10) it wanted to focus import duty concessions on poorer countries and so henceforth those regarded by the World Bank as high or upper middle income states would no longer qualify from January 2014.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

Packaging giant Tetra Pak is investing USD130 million in India to set up a second facility at Chakan, near Pune, western India, to manufacture carton packaging for dairy beverages and fruit-based drinks in south Asia and the Middle East.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

Asia has long been accused of fostering corruption and governments have often turned a blind eye, while their countries grow richer. One answer is increasing the role of non-state actors in dealing with the problem. Munza Mushtaq reports from the 14th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, Bangkok, Thailand.…

WINNERS

TURKEY

This was the year when Turkey really came into its own. With a well-established and successful clothing and textile industry, supping Europe, Russia and the Middle East, its industry this year laid claim to becoming a fashion centre. August’s Istanbul Fashion Week caught a lot of global attention with 21 catwalk shows, an audience of 40,000, and more than 500 overseas guests.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

IF proof were needed that politics and business do not always mix well, look no further than Sri Lanka’s knitwear industry. The European Commission has announced as of August 15, Sri Lanka has been suspended from its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP+) preferential trading regime, providing access to European Union (EU) markets for countries that abide by certain principles of good governance and human rights.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is advising tea-exporting countries to stimulate demand in their domestic markets, because major growing sales are unlikely in traditional importers of black tea, such as Britain and Russia. Here, "scope for expansion in consumption is quite limited…but in the countries where tea is produced the per capita consumption is much lower and so there is a lot more market potential," said Kaison Chang, secretary of FAO’s inter-governmental group on tea.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

INTIMIDATING armed guards, strict security procedures and daunting anti-aircraft missiles appear to be history for the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT), Sri Lanka’s only international airport, 40 kilometres from its capital Colombo.

The airport, formerly dubbed a ‘fortress’ due to its heavy military presence during the recently ended civil war, is now looking at transforming itself into the "safest and friendliest" airport in the world without the cumbersome security procedures that attended the three-decade-long armed struggle with the Tamil Tigers.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AS trade barriers continue to diminish, clothing brands are becoming more global. However it is not as easy for the sizes of their goods to be quite as worldly. International players need to adapt their fits for different target markets but that level of adaptation varies by country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TOWN of Asbestos in French-speaking Québec, Canada – named after the mineral that underpins its economy – is waiting to see whether its provincial government will approve a Canadian dollar CAD58 million (US dollar USD56 million) loan enabling an underground mine to tap an immense deposit.…

BY MARK GODFREY

MALAYSIA’S emergence as an airport centre for Asia’s low fare airlines has hit turbulence in a squabble between the country’s aviation authority and the region’s fastest growing airline, Kuala Lumpur-based Air Asia. At issue – the expansion of airport capacity for low fare airlines.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

THE TOBACCO industry in Sri Lanka is facing tough times. With increasingly hostile anti-tobacco regulations and a burgeoning illicit market, a public promise was made last summer by the now re-elected and powerful Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to eradicate tobacco consumption from his island nation by 2015.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

SRI Lanka is hoping to capitalise on its natural beauty to become a tourist hotspot, given that its three-decade long bloody civil war is now over. But Munza Mushtaq reports that because of ignorance on the part of local authorities, the country could become a hotspot for something far less welcome – commercial crime.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A YEAR of struggle would be the best way to sum up 2009 as far as the global clothing and textile industry is concerned. The depth and severity of the worldwide recession left many clothing and textile companies reeling, even impacting upon China, which had previously been dominating global markets.…

By Katherine Dunn, International News Services

The travails of Roman Polanski in Switzerland this autumn have offered some lessons to the world’s wanted over extradition laws and how to deal with them. The Polish director has of course been living in France, with little fear of extradition, since 1978, when he fled the USA facing statutory rape charges. Only now of course this autumn was he arrested on an American warrant on a visit to Switzerland, while movie stars and directors crowed for his release.

Now, he is out on bail, secured with the help of French president Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, who intervened on Polanski’s behalf. 

As Polanski languishes in Alpine house arrest in a luxury Swiss chalet, it’s clear that extradition is still, at base, a political decision – and to avoid it, one key is not supporting international causes unpopular with powerful governments.…

By Raghavendra Verma, in New Delhi

India is the latest example of a country struggling against a Maoist insurgency fuelled by rural inequality, showing how emerging market governments worldwide risk harbouring violent rebel groups while promoting economic development.

In Peru, the notorious Maoist guerrilla group ‘The Shining Path’ continue operations, funded by the illicit drug trade, after a major insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s failed to achieve its political ends. In Nepal, an armed insurgency was successful, ending with a peace accord in 2006, its Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Maoist) (CPN-UM) joining the country’s parliament and briefly leading its government.…

By Raghavendra Verma, in New Delhi

India is the latest example of a country struggling against a Maoist insurgency fuelled by rural inequality, showing how emerging market governments worldwide risk harbouring violent rebel groups while promoting economic development.

In Peru, the notorious Maoist guerrilla group ‘The Shining Path’ continue operations, funded by the illicit drug trade, after a major insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s failed to achieve its political ends. In Nepal, an armed insurgency was successful, ending with a peace accord in 2006, its Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Maoist) (CPN-UM) joining the country’s parliament and briefly leading its government.

Other Maoist groups continue to operate in pockets worldwide, for instance in The Philippines, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. But it is maybe in India where the phenomena has most prominence today. The Indian government, for its part, has identified the Maoist insurgency as a leading domestic security concern and it is unclear how this insurgency will end.…

BY WILL ROBERTSON, MARK ROWE and KEITH NUTHALL

THE ROBUST nature of the southeast Asian palm oil industry has been illustrated by the way the market has remained strong despite both the global recession and the arrival of weather phenomenon El Nino this year and its attendant drought conditions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations Development Programme (UNEP) is pushing the Sri Lankan government to use the country’s hard won peace to bring social and economic justice to tea plantation Tamils. These communities are not the long-established Tamils who supported the Tamil Tigers in the civil war that recently reached its bloody climax.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

NURSING of course is a profession that expands beyond cold medical science – it is about care. It is the prime motivation behind the wish of Pushpa Ramyani Zoysa, 42, a senior nurse at Sri Lanka’s leading government-owned 3,000 bed National Hospital of Sri Lanka, in Colombo, to give her workplace a more homely atmosphere.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

SRI LANKA, which saw an end to its quarter-century-long war recently, is stepping up efforts against money laundering and terrorist financing by introducing technologically savvy software. The initiative is led by the Sri Lankan Banks Association (SLBA), which includes retail, commercial banks and licensed specialised banks.…

By Munza Mushtaq, in Colombo, Sri Lanka

The destruction of a ruthless armed seperatist organisation in a small south Asian nation may provide lessons to counter-insurgency units fighting terrorists and rebel groups around the world. Sri Lanka citizens rejoiced this week at the end of its quarter century long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - dubbed as the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit.

In a final brutal battle in the northeast of the island, the group was wiped out from its very root with the killing of the organisation’s leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his son and heir-apparent Charles Anthony on Monday. This also marks the conclusion of an era of massive destruction since 1983 which killed more than 100,000, injured scores more and destroyed vast amounts of valuable property across the country.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

THE INDIAN paint and coating industry is currently passing through a significant transitional phase – being forced to shift its production from solvent-based to water-based products. The high crude oil prices in 2008 so increased the cost of raw materials that despite the fall in prices from last summer, many paint manufacturers have had little option but to move away from oil-based coatings.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and KEITH NUTHALL

A CHARGE sheet has been filed by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the key figures involved in the Satyam scandal, including the two PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) partners caught up in the affair. The CBI has confirmed that charges have been filed at a court in Nampally, Hyderabad, naming "Sri S.…

BY MARK GODFREY

WITH the global recession raging across most of the world, Bangladesh’s knitwear sector is maintaining a strong commercial position and looks better geared to survive the economic downturn than some of its regional competitors. Orders have only dipped marginally say local knitwear producers.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

As Sri Lanka’s military makes its final thrust against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the country’s government is trying hard to ensure the safety of its only international airport and its passengers, because of an enduring risk of attack from the separatist group.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE SULTANATE of Oman has earmarked billions of dollars to build six new airports and expand its existing international airports of Muscat and Salalah.

This Arabian country of 3 million people has the least developed aviation sector of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and this dramatic increase in capacity forms part of a diversification strategy away from energy – which accounts for an estimated 75% of government revenues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has issued a European Union (EU)-wide alert about the discovery of melamine contamination in lemon puff biscuits from Sri Lanka. The warning was made via the EU’s RASFF food safety alert system. This network also recently warned about the discovery in Finland of aflatoxins in groundnut kernels imported from Germany, originally grown in India.…

By Katherine Dunn

The travails of Roman Polanski in Switzerland this autumn have offered some lessons to the world’s wanted over extradition laws and how to deal with them. The Polish director has of course been living in France, with little fear of extradition, since 1978, when he fled the USA facing statutory rape charges.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

DOING business in a country wracked by civil war is never easy, and involves extra cost, but with care and good management, oil and gas companies can still turn profits in such circumstances. Sri Lanka is a good case in point: multinationals Shell, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Chevron Lubricants are trading successfully in this country, even as its government’s armed conflict with Tamil Tiger separatists reaches an expected military climax.…

BY SAEED AKHTAR BALOCH

PAKISTAN’s automobile industry, contributing 2.8 % to the country’s GDP by financial year (FY) 2006-7, has grown impressively this decade. But the sector’s growth may turn negative this year because of high inflation, especially rising steel prices, political uncertainty and overall economic recession in Pakistan and elsewhere.…

By Keith Nuthall

Should society worry about the impacts of a civil war on wildlife when people are dying? This June, Sri Lanka wildlife officials treated elephants for gunshot injuries. Of the 74 recorded elephant deaths in north and northwestern Sri Lanka in 2007, 44 were killed by gunfire.…

BY KENCHO WANGDI

LIKE other nurses in the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, religion played a part in convincing Dechen Om that she should become a nurse.

A Buddhist, like most of her co-patriots, she believed that by becoming a nurse she would get the chance to serve ill people and earn good karma so in the next life she would be born into a good family.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi; SAEED AKHTAR BALOCH, in Lahore; and KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

THE SOUTH Asian knitwear industry is experienced mixed fortunes at present, with the impact of China’s production boom and the global liberalisation of the textile sector still changing sub-continental fortunes.…

By Keith Nuthall

A UNITED Nations-sponsored global initiative to encourage business schools to teach and promote social and environmentally responsible commercial practices has gathered a critical mass of support. More than 100 business schools worldwide have now signed up to the Principles for Responsible Management Initiative.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Tudella, Sri Lanka

A UK-based company, which imports fresh fish from 35 countries worldwide, for resale in Europe, has created an alliance with two Sri Lanka domestic fishing and export companies to form Ceylon Fresh Seafood (Pvt.)…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

WHEN hostilities resumed in Sri Lanka’s long-smouldering civil war in July 2006, fish production in the country’s eastern province that year dropped two-thirds to 26,680 metric tonnes from 72,580mt in 2003, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EVERY decade or so comes a technology that is so new, comprehensive, interesting, and damned useful, that it changes the way that we learn, have fun and do business. Think commercial air travel, the mobile phone and the Internet…..these…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

SRI Lanka’s Tamil Tigers have stepped up commercial crime across continents to fund what they call the "final war" of separation, now the formal ceasefire with the govern,ent has ended. But, the foundation to pursue such sophisticated crime was laid during Sri Lanka’s highly internationalised peace process, reports Keith Noyahr from Colombo.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…

SAEED AKHTAR BALOCH, in Lahore

THE PAKISTANI biscuit and confectionery sector has been faring well, with 12-15% growth last year, but there are storm clouds on the horizons because of skyrocketing prices of sugar and flour. In recent years, these ingredient problems have been overshadowed by massive domestic demand, fed by more than 255 biscuit and wafer manufacturing units (42 mechanised) with an installed capacity of 47,000 metric tonnes for biscuits and 5,200 metric tonnes for wafers.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo
AIRLINE operators this week reviewed security at Sri Lanka’s Katunayake International Airport (KIA) days ahead of resuming night flights – suspended for two months since air attacks by the Tamil Tigers.

Its air defence has been made fully operational while Indian experts upgraded the radar system recently after the separatist Tigers in March dropped bombs from Czech-built ZLIN Z 143 aircraft on the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) base, adjoining the airport.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo
AS hostilities between Sri Lanka military and Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka’s north and east intensify, the country’s national air force has been entrusted with “overall security” of the Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake, near Colombo a top government official has disclosed to Janes Airport Review.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR in Colombo
A BOOMING paint and coatings sector in Sri Lanka that grew by 9% in 2006 was set to slow down as building plans are shelved and refurbishment put on hold with new taxes slapped, interest rates jacked up and an 18% inflation rate registered as the country slides back into civil war.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF has helped uncover three rules-of-origin frauds costing EU coffers millions of Euros. In one case, an OLAF-German police inquiry has uncovered the loss of Euro 50 million in duties by the illicit rerouting of Chinese energy-saving lamps via Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Tunisia to evade 66.1% anti-dumping duties on China-made lamps; Euro 7 million of avoided taxation has been recovered.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, in London

WHEN DISASTER strikes, public generosity and government donations direct huge sums of money to help survivors and repair local economies. However, what happens next is out of the donors’ hands. They have to trust that the various aid agencies and organisations overseas are directing funds to bona fide projects and individuals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH global trade ever increasing, and the power of brands to generate massive profits made starkly clear with every company report, the counterfeiting of goods is one of international organised crime’s major boom areas.

It is a serious problem for legitimate business, especially those based in developed countries with tough piracy controls, who are seeking to export to poorer countries where intellectual property crimes are a low priority.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation has moved to prevent a ban on Sri Lanka cinnamon exports to the European Union over food health concerns. In talks, Sri Lankan producers were persuaded to swiftly adopt international safety standards.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INDIA has been branded a serious hotspot for counterfeit books, in a global European Commission survey of countries where product fakes are manufactured. The Commission’s directorate general (DG) for trade gathered information from companies, diplomatic missions and trade federations.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

THE RESUMPTION of war in Sri Lanka is bad news. Period. But, ironically, there have been some benefits. One of these is a concentrating of the mind amongst law enforcement officials within Sri Lanka and their counterparts abroad into tracking down and stopping both terrorist financing and money laundering.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

AIRLINE operators this week reviewed security at Sri Lanka’s Katunayake International Airport (KIA) days ahead of resuming night flights – suspended for two months since air attacks by the Tamil Tigers.

Its air defence has been made fully operational while Indian experts upgraded the radar system recently after the separatist Tigers in March dropped bombs from Czech-built ZLIN Z 143 aircraft on the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) base, adjoining the airport.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

JAFFNA University in northern Sri Lanka has been hamstrung with a gradual breakdown in the ceasefire between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) over the past six months.

"After December there has been an increase in violence.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg, South Africa and DAVID HAWORTH, in Taiwan

TRADITIONAL health care systems do not always get a good press, being accused of incorporating superstition and poor medical practice. To some western public health advocates, they are akin to bringing back the leach.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

ONGOING recruitment of South African nurses to the UK is pushing South Africa’s already hard pressed public health system close to the brink of collapse and putting patient care at risk, the country’s lead nursing union and health experts have warned.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

A YEAR after the Boxing Day tsunami, the four badly affected universities in Sri Lanka’s north, south and east are boxing on, with a bare minimum of repairs and reconstruction for want of funds. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had estimated the damage to the buildings and hostels at Ruhunu, South Eastern, Jaffna and Eastern universities to be SL Rupees 72 million (Pounds 387,000 at local prices), but its Chairman Professor Ranjith Mendis regretted that "the government and foreign donors had not been able" to find these sums.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TEA companies paid hundreds of thousand of dollars in kickbacks to the toppled Saddam Hussein regime, the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed. More than 200 tea suppliers from countries including India, Indonesia, Russia and Sri Lanka bribed the Iraq government to secure contracts to supply humanitarian supplies under the scheme, out of 2,200 companies named in a committee report.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
FIGHTING money laundering is about getting your hands dirty. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) may pronounce global standards that it would like jurisdictions to follow, but all governments need help, and often regional bodies are better placed to do the detailed work than more remote global organisations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
INSURERS should have a much clearer idea of the risks involved in extending cover to the areas hit by the tsunami at the end of last year following agreement by 23 Indian Ocean nations to share data and set up seven regional warning centres.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINES and minerals ministers of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed wide-ranging cooperation plans to promote their respective mining sectors. At the first of a series of ministerial meetings, (in Sarawak, Malaysia), an ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (AMCAP) 2005-2010, containing 19 actions was approved.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GLOBAL tea production hit a new record high in 2004, growing 2% to reach an estimated 3.2 million tonnes, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has reported. The expansion was mainly due to increases in Turkey, China, Kenya, Malawi, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, offsetting declines in other major producing countries, notably India and Bangladesh.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAT criminals abuse the insurance industry is nothing new for a sector routinely screening claims for hints of fraud. However, its managers have proved far less alert to the risk of it being exploited by money launderers and terrorist financers, a new detailed report has claimed.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SUDDENLY accountants are being held in unusually high esteem and it’s all because of their work in connection with the relief effort for victims of the Boxing Day tsunami. To date some Pounds 4.7 billion for the stricken countries has been raised worldwide but nothing like that sum has yet got through to the people affected; some of it stolen perhaps and some of it wasted, but a lot of it bogged down in inadequate financial infrastructures: step forward the big multinational accountancy firms who have provided staff, management and professional advice and training, a good deal of it on a pro bono publico basis.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MOBILE documentation clinics for tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka have been offering free legal advice and assistance in obtaining personal legal papers lost in the disaster.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAT poor environmental standards harm people’s health is the raison d’etre of environmental health officers committed to improving living conditions across the board. And that the world’s environment is becoming ever dirtier and polluted is a universal assumption: but by how much?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced plans to bring forward by three months – to April 1 – its planned introduction of tariff preferences for developing countries for those states affected by the Tsunami disaster. European Union (EU) tariffs cuts will follow for a wide range of food products exported by India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

A YEAR after the Boxing Day tsunami, the four badly affected universities in Sri Lanka’s north, south and east are boxing on, with a bare minimum of repairs and reconstruction for want of funds. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had estimated the damage to the buildings and hostels at Ruhunu, South Eastern, Jaffna and Eastern universities to be SL Rupees 72 million (Pounds 387,000 at local prices), but its Chairman Professor Ranjith Mendis regretted that "the government and foreign donors had not been able" to find these sums.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYKE
ARRIVING air passengers at Bandaranaike International Airport, Sri Lanka, from countries infected with Asian bird flu are to be screened for symptoms of the disease.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GLOBAL tea production in 2003 reached a record high of 3.15 million tonnes, 75,000 tonnes more than in 2002, and although traded tea fell by 2.6% to 1.4 million tonnes, prices remained stable, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).…

Keith Nuthall
CIVIL unrest could be sparked in smaller developing countries next year by the abolition of World Trade Organisation (WTO) textile trade quotas and resulting loss of export markets to Chinese competition, new European Union

(EU) trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has extended to Sri Lanka and Indonesia 58.6% definitive anti-dumping duties imposed in 2003 on imports into the EU of iron or steel tube or pipe fittings manufactured in China, because of concerns about tariff evasion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has resisted calls at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by its developing country competitors for special efforts to protect them from economic dislocation caused by January’s end of textile import quotas. Mauritius, Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uganda pushed at a WTO Council on the Trade in Goods for a WTO secretariat study identifying the likely problems and recommending solutions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT could be the most underestimated commercial crime in the world, the illegal trade in wildlife and their products. Some estimates put its value at US$5 billion-a-year, but governments do not really seem to care. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Plant Genetic Resources Institute and United Nations Environment Programme have launched an In-Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives Through Enhanced Management and Field Application scheme preserving biodiversity in species rich Armenia, Bolivia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan.…

KEITH NUTHALL
OUTGOING European Union (EU) trade commissioner Pascal Lamy has tried to advise textile exporting developing countries on not being steamrollered by China when textile and clothing quotas are scrapped this December. He told the European Parliament’s trade committee that countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka should exploit continuing tariff preferences for their exports to the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FEEDING of rare and exotic marine species off deep ocean mineral deposits that may become a target for metal mining companies could create a conflict between international mineral extraction and environmental conventions, a United Nations report has warned.…

Keith Nuthall
AS the European Union (EU) prepares to abolish its remaining restrictive import quotas for textile and clothing products, the latest European Commission statistics confirm that China is best placed to exploit this liberalisation. For 2003, China exported more textile products to the expanded EU, with 10.7% of imports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FEEDING of rare and exotic marine species off deep ocean mineral deposits that may become a target for mining companies could create a conflict between international mineral extraction and environmental conventions, a United Nations report has warned.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ATTACK has been made on the United States, European Union (EU), and other textile importing jurisdictions for waiting until the last minute to abolish most restrictive quotas under the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Textile and Clothing.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has boasted that 100 countries have now signed its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, although only nine countries have yet to ratify the treaty. Of these, the world’s major developed economies are conspicuously absent, the line up including Fiji, India, Malta, Mongolia, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Seychelles and Sri Lanka.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
GROWING Sri Lanka soap manufacturer Hemas Holdings wants to increase exports and acquire more brands to exploit new additional manufacturing capacity, notably its new SLRupees 106 million soap plant at Welisara. The company currently only makes its own brand Baby Cheramy, commanding 35 per cent of the island’s baby soap market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE CEYLON Tobacco Company Ltd (CTC) reaped a trading profit of SLRupees 1,394 million (US$14 million) in its last financial year (ending December 31, 2003), 10 per cent up on the previous year. Total 2003 revenue was SLRupees 30.1 billion (US$300 million), from which CTC paid out SLRupees 25 billion (US$250 million) in excise and sales taxes.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lanka’s consumer affairs authority (CAA) has ruled that sugar in packs and containers and confectioneries such as cakes and sweets (also in packs or containers), sold in the south Asian country should display maximum retail prices, batch numbers and expiry dates on packaging.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A row has erupted in Sri Lanka after students in schools in the capital, Colombo, have been given free bookmarks in the shape of a beer bottle and carrying ribbons in the colours of a leading beer. Several hundred of the bookmarks, designed to promote beer brand awareness among boys and young men, have been distributed at school gates and main junctions near schools and are reported to be freely circulating among students.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lanka’s consumer affairs authority (CAA) has ruled that soaps, toothpaste and baby shampoo, oil, talcum powers and lotions sold in the country should display maximum retail prices, batch numbers and expiry dates on packaging. Soap products covered include toilet, medical toilet, carbolic, shaving, soft, liquid, baby and laundry soaps.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lankan government is wrongly promoting the consumption of poultry as an alternative to red meat in the diet of its citizens, according to a report from the Olcott Gunasekera of Dharmavijaya Centre for Promotion of Healthy Living in Sri Lanka.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE UNITED States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will provide technical assistance to Sri Lanka so it can comply with the rules of the US Container Security Initiative. The agency has asked US company Aerospace

Services International Inc.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lanka government is losing around SLRupees 900 million (US$9.32 million) in annual revenue because of a boom in counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes, the Ceylon Tobacco Company (CTC) has told a conference. It reported that a cheap black-market ‘Gold Seal’ brand is dominating the local market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lankan government is wrongly promoting the consumption of poultry as an alternative to red meat in the diet of its citizens, according to a report from the Olcott Gunasekera of Dharmavijaya Centre for Promotion of Healthy Living in Sri Lanka.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE UNITED States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will provide technical assistance to Sri Lanka so it can comply with the rules of the US Container Security Initiative. The agency has asked US company Aerospace

Services International Inc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lanka government is to introduce legislation requiring soap and cosmetic manufacturers and importers to submit samples of their products to its national analysis department to detect any toxins that may be present. Consumer affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake said the incoming regulation would insist a ‘Certificate of Product Approval’ be secured from the Sri Lanka Standards Institute, following a written recommendation from a government analyst.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE SRI Lanka government is to introduce legislation requiring confectionary manufacturers and importers to submit samples of products to its national analysis department to detect toxins that may be present. The regulation would force manufacturers to obtain a resulting ‘Certificate of Product Approval.’…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE SRI Lankan government has announced that a domestic airport adjoining Columbo’s Bandaranaike International Airport will be opened next year. Minister of Tourism Gamini Lokuge said that the project would use part of a neighbouring Sri Lanka military air force base.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
COCONUTS will be henceforth measured by weight as opposed to numbers of nuts at auctions in Sri Lanka, in a bid to improve productivity in sales and production. At a recent seminar, the country’s Coconut Development Authority stressed that weight sales would also attract desiccated coconut millers to auctions.…

SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
DSI Sampson Group has revamped its Cuddle Kids children’s shoe brand in Sri Lanka, targeting parents with children aged 1-6 years with a range exploiting sharp designs and strong colours. The company will use store promotions and advertising focusing on parents seeing their children take their first steps in Cuddle Kids shoes.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
A SRI Lanka university is talking to foreign mining investors after its geologists discovered a dense iron ore deposit in the south of the island country. Peradeniya University claims that the deposit, in Wellawaya district, has a purity exceeding 90 per cent and is estimated to be about 90 million tonnes in size.…

SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lanka Footwear Association is claiming that a protective tariff of SLRupees 100 (US$1.06) on every pair of shoes imported into the country is “gradually improving” the commercial health of its domestic shoe manufacturing industry. Association president Sarath Pathmalal welcomed the move and also the work of the government’s new shoe industry task force.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lanka’s Gem and Jewellery Research and Training institute has carried out a gem deposit survey in a 100 acre reservoir, revealing potential for mining blue and yellow sapphires and geuda rough stones in its silt. The discovery means that a plan to remove silt deposits from the Hasalaka tank, Kandy district, may have additional benefits for public authorities seeking to increase its capacity.…

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED Nations body established to settle claims made against Iraq because of its illegal occupation of Kuwait in 1991 has awarded a further US$315 million in compensation, bringing the total amount of money paid out under its authority to US$46.6 billion.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lanka’s National Inventor’s Commission and the country’s ODIRIS Engineering Company are commercialising a pedal power coconut scraper invented by a 14-year-old schoolboy Chatura Madhubashana, whose intermediate technology initiative had won a school district prize.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
NORWAY’S TGS Nopec and Sweden’s Petroscan AB are exploring the seas off Sri Lanka for submarine oil deposits, helping the island’s government. Initial results revealed evidence of petroleum and gas deposits in the Palk Straits, the Gulf of Mannar and south of the island.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
SRI Lankan finance company Sadaharitha Investment (Pvt) Limited, has introduced a new scheme – called Thurusetha – encouraging citizens and business to invest in planting mahogany on the island. The company claims that more than 1,000 investors have already signed up, leading to 40,000 trees being planted on more than one hundred and fifty acres in Ratnapura, Colombo and Kalutara districts.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lanka’s National Inventor’s Commission and the country’s ODIRIS Engineering Company are commercialising a pedal power coconut scraper invented by a 14-year-old schoolboy Chatura Madhubashana, whose intermediate technology initiative had won a school district prize.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE BATA Shoe Company of Ceylon has turned around its financial performance, recording an operating profit of SL Rupees 12.4 million (US$130,000) at the end of the 2002-3 financial year, compared with a loss of SL Rupees 31.2 million (US$320,000) at the end of 2001-2.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
HEALTH conscious Sri Lankan consumers are being offered a Vanilla Diet ice cream by Cold Stores, manufacturers of the Elephant House brand. Sucrose free, it contains 40 per cent less vegetable fat than regular ice creams.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
CEYLON Chocolated Ltd, Sri Lanka’s dominant chocolate company, is launching its premier brand Kandos and its latest introduction Newgen into south India. The company has invested SLRupees 150 million in its production centre at the city of Kandy.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
THE SRI Lankan government has returned its international airport departure tax fee to SLRupees 1,000 (US$10.29), having temporarily raised it to 1,500 (US$15.44). The move had prompted criticism as the higher tax rate outstripped rival destinations in the region.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE PROSPECT of significant underwater monosite, ilmanite, rutile and zircon off the Sri Lankan coast has attracted the attention of 10 international companies, two from Australia, two from India and two from Sri Lanka. Their applications to mine the 11 heavy mineral seabed deposits, whose estimated worth exceeds US$330 million, are being considered by the island’s Marine Pollution Prevention Authority (MPPA).…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
PENGUIN India has reported huge sales of the Order of the Phoenix, with 60,000 sales being distributed around the country and another 40,000 being sent out to booksellers next week. “Sales have been phenomenal, especially in the south and west regions,” marketing manager Thomas Abraham told the Hindustan Times.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A SRI Lanka soap manufacturer has been given a global prize for the quality of his product seven months after the award was announced, because he had been unable to secure a visa to visit London for three days to receive it.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lanka Insurance Corporation officials are assessing catastrophic losses that have hit the country’s tea industry which have been wrought by flooding devastating low-lying plantations. Early estimates predict that the island’s economy could lose as much as SLRupees 2.8 billion (US$28.79 million) because of the disaster.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lanka Insurance Corporation officials are assessing catastrophic losses that have hit the country’s tea industry which have been wrought by flooding devastating low-lying plantations. Early estimates predict that the island’s economy could lose as much as SLRupees 2.8 billion (US$28.79 million) because of the disaster.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
ASIAN Paints, the Indian colour multinational has been rated the best “small” company in India in 2002 by the financial magazine Asiamoney; (‘small’ companies are those with market capitalisation under US$500 million). Ashwin Dani, Asian Paints (India) managing director said: “This is reflection of our continuous process of being transparent and maintaining high standards of corporate governance.”…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A THIRD competitor will enter the Sri Lanka petrol distribution market this summer, said the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. Its identity was to be unveiled at the Columbo Stock Exchange. The Indian Oil Company is the other competitor.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union is facing growing opposition at the World Trade Organisation to its stance on geographical indications, where it refuses to grant protection to traditional regional names of drinks and food products from non-EU countries, unless their governments roughly copy Europe’s own rules.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lankan authorities have approved the delivery of 1,805 tonnes of LPG (owned by Mundo Gas) to Galle, reversing their usual opposition to such deliveries at commercial maritime ports; the Sri Lanka Ports Authority demanded US$2 million insurance cover.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
A CHILLED goods retailer has predicted the opening of markets in the north of Sri Lanka following the peace agreement between the Columbo government and the Tamil Tigers should boost its soft drinks sales by six per cent this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SRI Lankan government should work with the country’s leather industry to improve the quality of raw hides, a national industry workshop has concluded. It heard that the trade in finished or semi-finished Sri Lankan leather was suffering because of poor hide standards.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
CONSTRUCTION of an airport at Matugama, western Sri Lanka, was to start this month (April), to boost transport links to tourist developments. The island’s travel industry has been boosted by the peace deal with the Tamil Tigers.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDIA has been cementing its good relations with an increasingly peaceful Sri Lanka by holding extra oil stocks for its island neighbour in case of shortages caused by the Iraq war. Meanwhile, Shell Gas Lanka Ltd has laid contingency plans to ensure an uninterrupted supply of LPGas to Sri Lanka.…

Keith Nuthall
SRI Lanka was to increase its international airport departure tax from July 1 from SLRupees 1,000 (US$10.29) to 1,500 (US$15.44), outstripping rival destinations in the region. Although Sri Lanka Civil Aviation Authority officials stressed the extra money would be spent on Columbo’s Bandaranaike airport, the island’s press has noted Indian airports charge INDRupees 150 (US$3.22) departure tax on south Asian nationals and INDRupees 500 (US$10.73) on other travellers and Nepal’s Tribhuvan International Airport charges between NEPRupee 900 (US$11.89) and 1,100 (US$14.54).…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDIA’S Venkatesh Coke and Power Ltd. has announced that it has secured a sales contract for selling coke to Germany’s RAG from its planned 110MW power station in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, which will import 1.2 million tonnes of coking coal per year, mostly low ash coal from Australia.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
ANGER has been sparked amongst Sri Lanka’s footwear importers by the imposition of a SLRupees 100 (US$1.03) tax on imported pairs of footwear, causing traders to claim they are suffering heavy losses. The secretary of the island’s Footwear Importers’ Association, Sarath Pathirana, has claimed that when combined with other sales taxes, shoe importers now pay almost SLRupees 200 (US$2.03) in tax per pair.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
THE SRI Lanka government wants to set up a SLRupees 1.5 billion (US$15.48 million) footwear manufacturing centre at Homagama, near the capital Columbo, bringing 150 shoe factories and workshops together, with the aim of boosting cooperation and developing products for the export market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
ASIAN Paints (Lanka) Ltd., the Sri Lanka operation of the India-based multinational coating giant, is offering free insurance to professional painters who choose to use its products. They will be offered a comprehensive accident insurance scheme that could pay up to SL Rupees 250,000 (US$2,580) in compensation per painter.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lankan soft drinks companies have attacked their national government’s decision to continue imposing excise tax on their industry while planning to extend VAT to both the wholesale and retail distributors of the sector. Himal Fonseka, country-marketing manager for Pure Beverages Ltd.,…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SRI Lankan government will release a ‘National Policy on River Sand Removal’ in the coming weeks, to restrict an environmentally damaging boom in unregulated extraction. The country’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Management Gamini Jayawickrema Perera announced that permits for sand mining had already been blocked in two areas Deduru Oya and Ma Oya, where extraction had damaged river banks and flood protection.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI LANKA’S Cargills has introduced five new flavours to its Magice ice cream range: fresh strawberry, fruit and nut, vanilla with jaggery, mint with chocolate chips and butterscotch with nougat. The company claims the flavours are new to Sri Lankan consumers.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SRI Lankan government will release a ‘National Policy on River Sand Removal’ in the coming weeks, to restrict an environmentally damaging boom in unregulated extraction. The country’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Management Gamini Jayawickrema Perera announced that permits for sand mining had already been blocked in two areas Deduru Oya and Ma Oya, where extraction had damaged river banks and flood protection.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SRI Lankan government will release a ‘National Policy on River Sand Removal’ in the coming weeks, to restrict an environmentally damaging boom in unregulated extraction. The country’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Management Gamini Jayawickrema Perera announced that permits for sand mining had already been blocked in two areas Deduru Oya and Ma Oya, where extraction had damaged river banks and flood protection.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WAY back when….last December….the International Maritime Organisation agreed a compulsory maritime security code for its member countries, covering ships and ports involved in international trade. Governments have to write the code into their laws by December 31 and shipping companies and port authorities are supposed to comply by June 2004.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SWADESHI Industrial Works Ltd, of Sri Lanka, which manufactures and sells personal and fabric care products, has entered the island’s herbal toothpaste market with the launch of Protekt. It contains fluoride, calcium and herbal ingredients such as clove oil, cinnamon oil, aralu, kohomba and munamal pothu, being packaged in a flexible laminated tube.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane, EDWARD PETERS, in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg, MARK ROWE, in London, SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal.
FRAUD is fraud, jurists might say. And although jurisprudence generally has a universal flavour and there are frauds that are committed the world over, it would be a travesty of the truth to say that crimes involving deception uniform by nature.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
LANKA IOC Private Ltd. is to create a US$38 million Sri Lankan joint venture with the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, to take over the corporation’s existing storage assets and the construction and operation of new oil terminals at Muturajawela and Katunayake International Airport.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its allies at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade have made a significant concession, which may be the basis for a future deal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its allies at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade have made a significant concession, which may be the basis for a future deal.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A NEW subsidiary has been launched in Sri Lanka which will import cheaper generic drugs. STC Medical Ltd has been created by the country’s STC General Trading Co. Ltd. It will start commercial operations in January, initially importing five widely used generic drugs, namely Amoxicillin, Cefalexin, Enthromycin, Metfomin, and Atenolol.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A SENIOR Sri Lankan government official has warned his country’s construction industry that it faces running out of sand unless it stops over-exploiting river deposits and fails to develop extraction from the seabed offshore.

Janapriya de Silva, Chairman of the island’s Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, has warned: “We could run short of sand in another two years’ time.”…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA and KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOVERNMENT of Sri Lanka is embarking on a comprehensive survey of the country’s clay resources as demand grows thanks to an official policy of promoting a home-grown ceramics industry, which is already the largest mineral-based sector in this south Asian country.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
THE SRI Lankan government is preparing to impose a minimum price floor on shoe imports of US$5 per pair, say Columbo press reports. Officials are also discussing limits on the amount of shoes that can be imported into the country in personal baggage.…

BY SWNINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lankan press reports have claimed that clay mining in the country’s Lower Ma Oya Valley has been carried out so recklessly that the local river has burst its banks and has invaded villages in the valley.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A FRENCH company is launching its car repair warranty service in Sri Lanka, claiming that it is the first of its kind in south Asia. SAGE Guarantee Automobile said that it is investing Euro 1 million in the scheme, which it would use as a springboard to attack the Indian market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
PUBLIC protests have broken out in Sri Lanka against the Bandaranaike International Airport expansion project, which would evict more than 10,000 families living in and around the Kurana, Katunayake and Katana areas. Campaigners fighting the project were once supported by the ruling United National Party when it was in opposition, but it switched policies after winning last year’s election.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI LANKA’S Cargills has introduced five new flavours to its Magice ice cream range: fresh strawberry, fruit and nut, vanilla with jaggery, mint with chocolate chips and butterscotch with nougat. The company claims the flavours are new to Sri Lankan consumers.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lanka’s Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise holder Cargills Food Services (Pvt) Ltd. has invested SLRupees four million on converting an old Ceylon Transport Board bus to offer a mobile KFC service, which is being run as an experiment.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
CERAMIC manufacturers in Sri Lanka are seeking changes in national laws restricting the quarrying of paddy lands, because they contain premium deposits of kaolin. The Ceramics Industry Task Force has asked Columbo to certain provisions of the Agrarian Development Act, which ban the mining of paddy lands.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA and KEITH NUTHALL
CERAMIC manufacturers in Sri Lanka are seeking changes in national laws restricting the quarrying of paddy lands, because they contain premium deposits of kaolin. The country’s Ceramics Industry Task Force has asked its national government to revoke certain provisions of the Agrarian Development Act, which ban the mining of paddy lands, even if they are not being used for agriculture or have ceased to be viable for food production.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lankan glove manufacturer Dipped Products Ltd has acquired a controlling interest in its European distributor ICO Guanti Spa, of Genoa, Italy. The payment of shares valued at US$855,000 (SL Rupees 81 million) is being funded from the company’s export earnings, Dipped Products told the Columbo stock exchange.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lanka’s Silicon Coatings (Pvt) Ltd., the manufacture and marketer of Nippolac Paints, has manufactured a waterproofing product called Nippoflex, a cement-based roof water-proofer which is supposed to provide long- term protection from any type of roof, including asbestos, concrete, tiled, metal or aluminium.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
THE INDIAN and Sri Lankan governments are to launch a drive to promote the export of tea to untapped markets. New Delhi and Columbo will promote the sale of ‘tea futures’ on financial markets and their respective Tea Boards will study future market openings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SRI Lankan government has adopted a five-year plan to boost annual national income from exports of spice and allied products from SL Rupees 6.5 billion (US$67million) in 2001 to SL Rupees 30 billion (US$311million) in 2006.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Colombo
THE SRI Lankan footwear industry is ailing because of its inability to regularly update its designs and styles, Ranjith Hettiarachchy, Deputy Chairman of the Ceylon National

Chamber of Industries and Chairman of its Footwear and Leather Sector has said.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Colombo
THE INTRODUCTION of protective duties or quantitative import quotas is being considered seriously by the Sri Lankan government, as a response to complaints from local shoe producers that foreign rivals – notably from China – are dumping cheap product on the island’s market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lankan government has announced that it is to furnish its cabinet and junior ministers with 115 new photocopiers, bought in a multi-million rupee deal from John Keells Office Automation (JKOA), part of the John Keells Holdings group, one of the country’s largest companies.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SRI Lankan Cabinet of Ministers has taken a long awaited decision to approve the establishment of a coal fired power plant, generating 300MW of energy from imported coal, (the island does not produce its own coal).…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE EXPORT Development Board of Sri Lanka has been publicising good practice from research projects designed to reduce energy consumption by the island’s ceramics industry, to cut its costs and improve competitiveness on global markets. The board estimates that energy bills account for 20 to 30 per cent of Sri Lankan ceramic company production costs.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
COATINGS giant Asian Paints says that sales success has made it consider opening more of its Colour World units in Sri Lanka, eighteen months after it opened the retail chain on the island to coincide with its launch of its Apcolite emulsion.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
LAUGFS Lanka Gas Ltd. is to start importing LPG to boost its Sri Lanka supplies, despite agreeing last October to purchase Ceylon Petroleum Corporation’s entire production for three years. Laugfs said demand had outstripped supply after selling LPG at SLRupees 100 less than competitor Shell.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE Coconut Cultivation Board of Sri Lanka is complaining that 18.5 per cent of the island’s nut bearing palms have grown “senile,” being past their productive peak at 60 years plus. The board wants to replenish stocks with younger trees.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
CARGILLS Quality Dairies Ltd is launching the ‘Cargills Magic’ ice-cream brand in Sri Lanka, the first based on Cargills’ takeover of the island’s Walls factory.”…

BY SWINTEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SALE of Sri Lanka’s state owned Insurance Corporation is underway, with the appointment of a tender board and technical evaluation committee to handle the privatisation and the award of an overseeing contract to Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

As the south Asian country’s only state owned insurance venture, the Insurance Corporation commands a 44 per cent market share in general insurance and 35 per cent in life portfolios and has been prospering from a 1.2 per cent growth rate.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
MINERAL processing is set to resume in earnest at the Pulmoddai beach mine in northern Sri Lanka, because the ceasefire between the island’s government and the Tamil Tiger separatists has removed the threat of violent disruption to its operations.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
MINING is set to resume in earnest at the Pulmoddai beach mine in northern Sri Lanka, because the ceasefire between the island’s government and the Tamil Tiger separatists has removed the threat of violent disruption to its operations.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A SPECIALITY Sri Lankan brewer has dug into the colonial heritage of his south Asian island by launching a heavily hopped dark beer that he is marketing as 3C Irish Dark. The CEO of the Three Coins Beer Company Lasath Suriyapperuma says that the brew is smooth on the palate and has a reddish tinge.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lankan legislators are considering proposals to create a powerful national electricity regulator, which would combine the functions of the Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. This new Power Supply Committee would have an expanded remit, being tasked with ensuring the smooth operation of electricity transmission in a country where cuts in service are common.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A MEMORANDUM of Understanding has been signed by nine south Asian electricity utilities regarding the promotion of regional cooperation in energy development. As a result, utilities from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal will share information on best practice regarding energy generation and management.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
THE CEASEFIRE between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers has sparked plans to resume domestic flights to Jaffna town, previously isolated by the group’s insurgency. Columbo officials are examining the standard of the runway, navigation equipment and passenger facilities at Jaffna’s Palaly airport.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lanka’s Parquet (Ceylon) Ltd, the island’s long troubled wooden flooring manufacturer, appears to have emerged from the red during the last financial year, posting a trading profit of SLRupees 15.6 million for the 9 months ending December 31, 2001, up from a loss of SLRupees 13.7 million a year earlier.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE CEYLON Petroleum Corporation has modified its refinery to remove lead additives from petrol marketed in Sri Lanka. It has expanded sales outlets for unleaded petrol throughout the country.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE USA dominates the world’s soft-drinks markets with its Coca Cola, Pepsi and affiliated brands, so can the big players in the European bottled mineral water industry achieve a similar success with brands such as Evian, Volvic and Perrier?…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SRI Lankan government has announced that it is imposing 10 per cent VAT on bunker and aviation fuel from June 1, from which they have been previously exempt.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
A PROGRAMME to strengthen commercial aviation security on a global scale, primarily through a mandatory audit of national services, has been agreed by all 187 Member States of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) at a two day High-Level, Ministerial Conference held at its headquarters in Montreal, Canada.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE CEYLON Petroleum Corporation is building a SLRupees 10 billion tank farm at Muthurajawela, near Columbo, that will enable tankers to unload cargo from six miles offshore through a single-point buoy mooring system. The corporation has also introduced unleaded petrol to dealers in most larger Sri Lankan cities.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDONESIA has emerged as a major producer of desiccated coconut during the last three years, and is now threatening Sri Lanka’s position in the world market, the chairman of the island’s desiccated coconut millers association has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A JAM factory will be opened by the Chunnakam Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society near Jaffna, Sri Lanka, the first food plant launched in this contested region since government forces regained control from the Tamil Tigers in 1996.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A NEW ice cream launch is to be made in Sri Lanka by the country’s largest supermarket chain Cargills, which has brought the island rights to the Walls range off Unilever. The company will not divulge the name of the new brand, but it will not be called Walls.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SHELL Gas Lanka Ltd and David Pieris Motor Co have launched gas conversion equipment in Sri Lanka for three-wheeled vehicles that includes a special 4 kg LPG cylinder, to provide a cheaper alternative to petrol. The two companies claim that the equipment will allow motorists to reduce fuel bills by more than 35 per cent.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
CEYLON Carriers Ltd., and the Transport Corporation of India have signed an agreement to launch a cost-effective system of cargo transportation in Sri Lanka. The partners will introduce a new Express Cargo System in the country, extending an air freight and shipping network that already covers India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A JAM factory will be opened by the Chunnakam Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society near Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, the first food plant launched in this contested region since government forces regained control from the Tamil Tigers in 1996; the combatants are now negotiating a peace deal.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lankan soap and coconut oil manufacturer BCC Lanka Ltd is to invest SL Rupees 25 million (GBPounds 180,000), in automating its coconut oil manufacturing plant, while increasing its soap production facility in order to re-launch its entire product range, which includes Sovereign Bar and Suvendra soap brands.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A SRI Lankan metal company is to try and exploit the advantages of the Indo-Lankan Free Trade Agreement by exporting its aluminium extrusions to the south Indian cities of Madras, Bangalore, Trivandrum and Cochin.

Lanka Aluminium Industries Ltd is planning to team up with Jindal Aluminium, of India, in its bid to move out its small domestic market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
A SHELL company in Sri Lanka has announced that it has tapped into a lucrative latent demand on the tropical south Asian island for solar electricity systems, installing 5,400 units out of around 10,000 in the country in its first two years of operation.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SOFT drinks giants Nestle, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are developing ice tea products to break into a new market place in tropical Sri Lanka this summer. The three will join Hindustan Lever, which has already launched its Lipton Ice brand.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lanka’s Bata Shoe Company of Ceylon Ltd is continuing to lose money according to a report on the first nine months of the current financial year. To September 30, 2001, the company suffered a 10 per cent drop in turnover to SL Rupees 734.5 million and also a substantial increase in its operating losses, which grew to SL Rupees 62.8 million from SL Rupees 34.4 million a year earlier.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SRI Lankan government has struck a deal with multinational Mundogas Ltd to supply LPG to customers on the island from May. With retail prices for a 12.5 kg cylinder being between Rs. 325 and Rs.350, Columbo has claimed the agreement will help ensure supplies of reasonably priced fuel in the country.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
THE CEYLON Chamber of Commerce has called on the Sri Lankan government to develop, upgrade and modernise Katunayake Airport with additional runways, facilities and hotel services in the next two years in a plan ‘Strategies for Growth Leveraging the Private Sector.’…

BY SWNINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
ROYAL Ceramics Lanka Limited, one of the largest ceramic tile manufacturers in Sri Lanka, has launched a rights issue in a bid to raise more than SLRupees 246 million to try and almost double its present production capacity from 1.2 million square metres to 2.3 million square metres.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE PRICE of Sri Lankan coconuts could tumble if a plan by the country’s Coconut Cultivation Board to double the national annual production to about 7.6 billion nuts by increasing yields through scientific cultivation techniques is successful.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
KEY Sri Lankan footwear player D. Samson & Sons Ltd has launched a cosmopolitan range of ladies footwear, “Personality Walk,” through its exclusive outlets in the country. The company is hoping that the range will persuade Sri Lankan consumers to abandon their taste for imported shoes.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
LANKA Walltile Ltd of Sri Lanka has recorded a gross sales increase of 1.25 per cent in 2000-2001, despite a boom of imports of cheap tiles from India, Thailand and India in the Sri Lankan market.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lankan government has been urged by a working group of its National Development Council to proceed with the 300MW Norochcholai Coal Power Project immediately, if it wants to avert a future electricity crisis. The group wants the plant commissioned and generating power by January 2006, with a possible expansion being carried out by 2010.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HIGH-LEVEL meeting of the Montreal Protocol controlling ozone-depleting chemicals has reviewed data on the use of CFC’s by developing countries, concluding that while most are in compliance, 25 of 136 had increased their consumption in 1999.

Participants from more than 100 countries took part in the meeting, in Sri Lanka, the latest in a regular schedule which makes THE protocol a dynamic and constantly-changing system of global regulation, rather than a static treaty that could become outdated.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HIGH-LEVEL meeting of the Montreal Protocol controlling ozone-depleting chemicals has reviewed data on the use of CFCs by developing countries, concluding that while most are in compliance, 25 of 136 had increased their consumption in 1999. The meeting, in Sri Lanka, also agreed a study to help governments decide how to replenish the protocol fund helping developing countries phase-out ozone depleting chemicals.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMNAYAKE
THE SRI Lanka government is considering proposals to set up a series of power plants fuelled by natural gas, with companies from Australia, the Middle East and Malaysia are among those making proposals to Columbo. Ministers have highlighted plans for an Australian company to install three 350MW natural gas power plants over nine years.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lankan confectioner Ceylon Biscuits Ltd, manufacturers of Munchee biscuits, has claimed that its expansion into the Indian market has been a success and should help it reach a turnover of SLRupees three billion, (Pounds 22.5 million), in 2002.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SRI Lankan aluminium extrusions manufacturer Lanka Aluminium Industries Ltd has announced that it has experienced its first year of sales decline, after six years of a consistent profit hikes.

Its annual report said that the last financial year saw sales volumes decline 10 per cent over the previous year, although turnover was up due to price increases.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
AGREEMENT has been struck between the Japanese and Sri Lankan governments over funding for a SLRupees12 billion development project for the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), near Columbo, which was attacked by Tamil Tiger terrorists this summer.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka, and KEITH NUTHALL
ELECTRONIC devices and double fencing with increased strong points are to be installed at Sri Lanka’s Bandaranaike International Airport to strengthen perimeter security, following the devastating recent attack by Tamil Tiger guerrillas.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka
UNILEVER Ceylon Ltd is to close its Walls Ice Cream unit outside Colombo, Sri Lanka, due to worker unrest blamed on unions controlled by the Marxist JVP group, (Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna). The company said it will source ice cream for Sri Lanka elsewhere.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
SHELL Lanka Ltd has contested statements in Sri Lanka’s state-run Public Enterprise Reforms Commission’s official website, that the company had recorded a profit of SL Rupees 379 million, (US$4.2 million), Rs.303 million and Rs.34 million in 1998, 1999 and 2000 respectively.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka
THE TIMBER industry in Sri Lanka is to be given a boost with the setting up of a Dedicated Economic Centre in Lunawa, in the Colombo capital district of Sri Lanka.

Construction should begin start by the end of August for what is being called a one-stop-shop for the industry, which will include sales points and an exhibition centre, as well as centralised facilities for the seasoning of timber, polishing and stripping.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka
A BILL banning advertising of alcohol in Sri Lanka has been adopted by country’s cabinet, following debates lasting nearly two years between health and drinks industry campaigners. The bill will now have to be submitted to the country’s parliament.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
A GIANT leather-tanning complex is to be set up at the cost of SL Rupees 24 billion at Bata Atha, Hungama, Sri Lanka. The project is being funded by private capital and aid, including payments from Norway.…

KEITH NUTHALL
BATA Ltd, Sri Lanka’s biggest shoemaker, has claimed that it is turning around from a period of financial and labour problems at its retail outlets, with increased production and planned profitability in the south Asian island. The multinational company’s Peruvian-born MD Jorge Carbajal rejected reports and speculation in the Sri Lankan press that Bata was closing down its island production unit, selling off interests to a competitor and limiting its operations to an import and distribution outfit.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka
THE PRESIDENT of the Indian Footwear Components Manufacturers’ Association has asked the New Delhi government to set up a Rupees 1,000 million technology modernisation fund to help the sector “face international competition and gain confidence.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
(maximum marks for this one, I think. Only drawback – it’s only as good as the alarm system it comes with.)

Price (installed):

the 2000 model (155 cubic metres) – pounds 1,350

the 4000 model (250 cubic metres) – pounds 1,800

the 8000 model (400 cubic metres) – pounds 2,200

Contact:

Smokecloak

10 Cochran Close, Crownhill

Milton Keynes, Bucks.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
BRITISH freight forwarder Oughtred & Harrison (Shipping) Ltd, (O&H), is to team up with one of Sri Lanka’s leading companies in the sector South Asia Logistics Ltd, with the companies signing an agency agreement to develop services between their respective countries.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka
THE AIRPORT Authority of India, (AAI), is studying ways to speed the clearance of cargo through Indian airports because of concerns that it is taking an excessively long time. V.K. Duggal, Chairman of Scope Air, (Standing Committee on Promotion of Exports-by Air), said at a meeting in Chennai, that the AAI was studying ways of reducing the time cargo remained at airports, notably by providing facilities to major airlines to set up their own X-Ray machines.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
DEMAND for ostrich leather, particularly from south Asia, has been one the result of the recent spread of foot-and-mouth disease across the globe, notably to Britain, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The problems have created a scarcity in the market for bovine leather and there have been industry reports from India saying that there has been a resulting good demand for printed leathers, especially ostrich leather print, reflecting positive opinions that it is distinctive and elegant.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo, Sri Lanka
THE SRI Lanka government has drawn up a plan to develop the country’s rundown Ratmalana airport as a joint civil and military facility, at a cost of (SL) Rupees 880 million, a senior official of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Airports Development has told the island’s Press.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has lifted quotas and tariffs restricting imports of clothing products from the Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Bosnia. This follows a promise from these countries that they would reduce tariff and quota barriers restricting the export of EU-made clothing products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has lifted all quotas on imports of clothing products from Ukraine, following confirmation that Ukraine has lowered its tariff levels for EU textile exports, as agreed last year.

Brussels has also removed restrictive textile quotas for Sri Lankan clothing exports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EAST Asian shipping companies are expected to receive a boost from the ratification by China of the Bangkok Agreement, making one of Asia’s oldest trade accords the world’s largest in terms of market potential.

With China joining the arrangement – which is based on shared trade preferences – it becomes the largest regional trade arrangement, opening up a market with a combined population of more than 2.5 billion, said the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, (ESCAP).…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union has lost its appeal at the World Trade Organisation against last year’s disputes panel ruling, which censured its imposition of anti-dumping duties on cotton-type bed linen from India. The Appellate Body of the WTO disputes procedure has agreed that the EU did erect duties via procedures that broke international anti-dumping regulations.…

BY SWINEETHA WICKRAMANAYAKE AND ANNIE KEY
PROPOSALS are in the pipeline for airport construction projects, expansions and refurbishments throughout India and Sri Lanka. Over the next five years, there are plans to launch at least five new airports throughout the region, although it in anticipated that significant support from their respective governments will be required for them to be a fully fledged success.…