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Sunday Nov 17, 2024
Thursday, 3 April 2014 00:29 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Kalhari Group’s CEO was awarded the APEA 2014 – Most Promising Entrepreneurship Award organised by Enterprise Asia, a non-governmental organisation which promotes the development of entrepreneurship across the Asia-Pacific region. The awards were organised in Sri Lanka by the Sri Lanka-Malaysia Business Council of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
The Kalhari Group is a successful recycling business in rural Heiyantuduwa. The company has been a major contributor to environmental conservation and sustainable development in Sri Lanka. It re-cycles and exports significant quantities of solid waste every month to several countries including China, India, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Rajapaksa, schooled at Ananda College, Colombo, studied Polymer Science Technology at the Katubedda Campus of the Moratuwa University, and has an MBA in Business Management. A Fellow of the Plastic and Rubber Institute [PRI] of Sri Lanka, he has a wealth experience in the export quality vulcanised/cold cement foot wear manufacturing industry as well as in the tyre industry in the manufacture of pneumatic and solid tyres for industry, construction and agriculture.
Rajapaksa is a Director of Building A Future Foundation, an organisation dedicated to the training of youth in ocean based activities. He is also a director of Marina Lanka – a company set up with foreign collaboration to service the yachting industry in Sri Lanka for the development of marinas along the island’s picturesque coastline, as well as for the water-front development of resorts and hotels, and for canal based marina development.
A keen social worker who mobilises his entire staff for Kalhari’s CSR activities, Rajapaksa is also a principal cabinet officer of Lions district 306 B2 which provides him with an avenue to be of greater service to the community.
The Kalhari Group has around ninety employees nearly eighty percent of whom are from the village of Heiyantuduwa where the company’s major operations are centred. Having started as a company re-cycling PET bottles, it has expanded to five companies engaged in footwear upper stitching, tyre waste recycling, and trading; and has factories in Heiyantuduwa, Mahara and Minuwangoda. In addition, it provides the livelihood for around 40 collectors who supply the factory with waste for recycling.
Among the recycled products exported by Kalhari Enterprises are waste products from the tyre, rubber latex, beverage, hotel and steel industries. Other export products include a variety of plastics including used PET bottles and electronic waste.
The Most Promising Entrepreneurship Award is awarded to recognise individuals in the Asia-Pacific region who have shown very promising efforts, perseverance and growth in their business. This, the second APEA Award won by Rajapaksa adds to the export awards the Kalhari Group has consistently won since the inception of the NCE Export Awards in Sri Lanka in 2007. Last year Rajapaksa won a Merit Award from the Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI).
Rajapaksa also had unstinting praise for Sri Lanka’s environment authorities including the Central Environment Authority (CEA) and the Western Province Waste Management Unit for their efforts in managing environment pollution and waste disposal.
Rajapaksa is quite emphatic about the need for environmental and sustainable development. “We in Sri Lanka need to be very conscious of our responsibilities towards preserving our environment as our forefathers have done for thousands of years,” he says. “With greater access to modern technologies we are also confronted with the challenges faced by more developed countries. However, with the unique diversity of our country, we have to be extra conscious of the need to protect the environment, and ensure that no damage is caused.”
“Recycling and export to other countries as well as recycling for re-use are be strategies that would benefit Sri Lanka immensely, as it marches forward with its development. Expanding our operations countrywide is a natural progression towards that end,” the two-time winner of the APEA Award concludes.
