Trade Minister, Dept. of Commerce meet SLASSCOM and IT industry CEOs

Tuesday, 17 January 2023 01:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Engagement is part of series of meetings to better understand and facilitate measures to boost exports

The Ministry of Trade Commerce and Food Security and the Department of Commerce last week met with the Sri Lanka Association for Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) and the industry CEOs.

The engagement was as part of a series of meetings that will be held to obtain views, ideas and propositions in identifying the most efficacious courses of action that can be taken to promote export products and services of Sri Lanka to the world.

The familiarisation program for the trade representatives in Sri Lanka Embassies to devise novel ways of facilitating the business community to develop their business endeavours and boost exports.

Addressing the gathering, Trade Minister Nalin Fernando stated that the Ministry together with the Department of Commerce was committed to cooperate with the private sector and business support organisations to enhance their business endeavours, thus enabling the country to move forward as an export-oriented economy to overcome the current economic crisis. He assured that trade officers of Sri Lanka Embassies would engage with the private and corporate sector proactively in realising their economic and trade objectives. The ICT/BPO industry was one important area for engagement in realising the targets to become a $ 5 billion industry by 2025.

SLASSCOM members expressed their views that commercial officers overseas have an important and crucial role to play in being the forward linkage and closely working with their interlocutors abroad to identify market opportunities for the ICT/BPO sector to realise their full growth potential. They also expressed that the Department of Commerce should adopt a well-structured mechanism to work closely with the business community with a periodic review process in place to reap positive results. Minister Nalin Fernando expressed his fullest support and decided to establish key performance indicators (KPI) to constructively move forward.

Ministry Secretary A.M.P.M.B. Atapattu, Department of Commerce Acting Director General Gilma Dissanayake and senior officials of the Ministry and the Department of Commerce participated in the discussion. The Department of Commerce, Trade Promotion Unit will continue to organise such interactions for the other main export industries of Sri Lanka consistently in order to engage with the business community in a more focused manner to realise the full export potential of the country.