ILCCI holds 5th Annual General Meeting

Friday, 2 August 2013 03:11 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Indo Lanka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ILCCI) established in 2006 under the aegis of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, held its 5th Annual General Meeting on 25 July 2013. High Commissioner of India Y.K. Sinha was the Chief Guest.

Speaking at the AGM, Sinha noted that the ILCCI provides a key common platform to companies to promote and contribute to the growth of business relations between Sri Lanka and India. Speaking further, Sinha stated: “I sincerely hope that ILCCI will continue to serve as a symbiotic link that binds our two countries and will further enhance our substantive economic engagement in terms of mutually beneficial trade and investment, thereby creating a win-win situation for both countries. The last two decades have seen momentous changes sweeping the world. For the last four years, the global economy has been struggling with an unprecedented crisis which has had a domino effect across the world. No country big or small has remained insulated from these changes and even today the situation in Europe and America remains fragile. However, in this bleak economic environment, countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have demonstrated remarkable resilience. In the emerging multi-polar world order, the new growth poles lie in the Southern hemisphere. “In the backdrop of this changing global economic architecture, we need to reinvent and redefine our relationship. Let us take a leaf out of the experience of our neighbours in East Asia who have had the wisdom to join hands in an integrated production value chain as part of ASEAN. ASEAN can serve as a model for us as it effectively demonstrates how Nation States with as diverse levels of development as Singapore and Laos can come together for mutually rewarding economic partnerships. A dialogue is now underway for creating a Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership in East Asia, which will have in its embrace the ASEAN and six other dynamic economies, namely China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.” ILCCI President Vish Govindasamy addressing the members stated: “A vast number of top Indian companies continue to show immense interest in investing in Sri Lanka in many major sectors. It has also not been one sided and our own Companies have found

prospects to invest in the Indian market and be benefited by it. We have no doubt – as we have been saying year on year – that, the Free Trade Agreement has brought many benefits to both India and Sri Lanka. The ups and downs under the FTA I mentioned earlier are being addressed time and again by both sides and even though certain issues may take some time to be settled to every ones satisfaction, it is an encouraging factor that problems faced by the business community are being given a fair hearing by the Authorities concerned.” The following were elected to the Committee of ILCCI for the year 2013/2014, at the AGM: President Vish Govind-asamy, Group Managing Director, Watawala Plantations PLC, Vice Presi-dent Biju Jacob, Country Head, ICICI Bank and Vice President Romesh David, President Transportation Group, John Keells Holdings PLC. Immediate Past Pre-sident: Desamanya Mano Selvanathan, Group Director, Carson Cumberbatch PLC Committee Members: Samantha Rajapakse, Managing Director, Associated Motorways (Pvt) Ltd., Suren Goonewardene, CEO/MD, Bharti Airtel Lanka Ltd., Deshabandu Tilak De Zoysa, Chairman, Carson Cumberbatch PLC, Vinod Hirdaramani, Director, Hirdaramani (Industries) Ltd., Sanjay Tiwari, President/Executive Director, Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC, Shri Manish, Counsellor (Economic & Commercial), High Commission of India and P.D. Fernando, Director General Commerce of Sri Lanka (by invitation).