Lanka IOC wins main award at National Chamber awards

Lanka IOC PLC, Indian Oil Corporation's subsidiary in Sri Lanka, became the overall Gold Award Winner at the National Business Excellence Awards 2017 held at Colombo Hilton last week, organised by the National Chamber of Commerce, Sri Lanka.

Lanka IOC also won awards under the categories of Extra Large and Trading.

The Overall Silver and Large category awards were won by Alumex PLC and the Bronze was awarded to Kelani Valley Plantations PLC. Medium Category was won by Quality Tea Company (Pvt) Ltd; Small Category by Hayleys Agro Biotech (Pvt) Ltd and Micro by Ranbath Organic Food and Catering Services (Pvt) Ltd.

David McKinnon, High Commissioner of Canada as Chief Guest at the function, said that Sri Lanka is full of natural resources, an educated population and is in a strategic location in the Indian Ocean. It is now time for all the stakeholders to come together to create an enabling environment for the private sector to grow and invest.

He said that events of this nature recognise the efforts of the Sri Lankan business community to excel in all spheres of leadership, governance and sustainability going beyond the traditional focus on the bottom line and it pushes local businesses to be competitive in the domestic and international market place.

He was emphatic on the importance of a vibrant private sector as the engine of growth as Sri Lanka is now moving towards a new era in its development which would enable the country to achieve its vision.

Sujeeve Samaraweera, President, NCCSL said that at a time when there was no recognisable awards competition for the corporate establishments in 2004 their chamber commenced this significant event and since then each year many corporate establishments are clamouring to enter the competition.

He indicated that today the National Business Excellence Awards is branded as one of the most popular awards' competition in the business community specially due to the transparency of the evaluation process backed up by a professional team of judges.

He said that the chamber's objective in conducting this event is to guide corporate establishments - the business community - to attain the level of excellence comparable with world class companies. This type of competition would enable the local companies not only to excel at local level but also compete at global level.