Export chamber creates export linkages with Northeast producers

The National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka (NCE) has recently collaborated with the Inter national Labour Organisation (ILO) with a view to establish business linkages for export with agricultural producers in Sri Lanka’s North and East.

In this context, an awareness seminar for exporters regarding agricultural products available in the two regions was held late last month at the Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo.

The chamber said in a media release that the objective of the project is to promote inclusive economic development among the people in the Northeast creating decent employment opportunities, and long-term sustainable livelihoods.

More than 40 exporters participated in the programme and in the interactive session to clarify facts regarding the availability of products from these two regions.

The programme commenced with Ramal Jasinghe, President of the NCE welcoming the gathering. In his address he mentioned that the ILO- NCE partnership is creating better livelihoods for people in the Northern and Eastern regions.

Simrin Singh, ILO country Director for Sri Lanka and Maldives, stated that Sri Lanka is a positive example as opposed to many other country situations where she has been the Country Director before taking over the responsibility in Sri Lanka. She added that many issues such as child labour, adverse working conditions of labour, etc were not prevalent in Sri Lanka.

Addressing the gathering, Nihal Devagiri, project coordinator of the ILO shared information on the brief history of the project, and the partnership with NCE since 2011. He said many problems prevailed in these two regions with regard to post-war development projects, such as issues related to poverty, and the need to create social harmony. However there are now high quality products that are of export quality like for example fisheries products such as mud crabs but what the farmers lacked was market access. Therefore, he said, it is important to create linkages through national level partners such as the chamber.

During the interactive session, a seafood exporter from Trincomalee said that problems prevailed regarding quality due to middlemen trading in the fisheries sector while there was a large wastage of fish.

It was also noted that the fisheries sector in the East is not as organised as the Northern fisheries sector.