Shamil Mendis re-elected as President of Sri Lanka-Singapore Biz Council

The 13th Annual General Meeting of the Sri Lanka-Singapore Business Council was held on 14 December 2010 at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Shamil Mendis, Group Director of Delmege Forsyth & Co. Ltd., was elected President of the Council for the year 2010/2011.

Shamil Mendis (seated centre) with the Sri Lanka-Singapore Business Council’s Executive Committee for 2010/2011

Mendis, in his address, stated that the council with its membership of over 50 reputed companies serves as a recognised representative of the business sector facilitating the exchange of information on trade, investment and engaging in other relevant activities to strengthen and expand business relations between Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Mendis emphasised that an important objective of the Council was to organise promotional programmes to optimise opportunities for its members to do business with Singapore.

In this regard, a highly successful seminar was held in Singapore by International Enterprise (IE) Singapore in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Singapore Business Council and the Sri Lanka High Commission in Singapore.

The success of the seminar was reflected by the fact that three delegations, two led by IE Singapore and another led by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) visited Sri Lanka in 2010.  

Mendis further stated that similar business promotional activities as well as other events will be held in the forthcoming year for the benefit of the members of the Council. The vision of the Council remains to exploit the many opportunities that prevail for the furtherance of bilateral trade, joint ventures, services and tourism between Singapore and Sri Lanka and the Council functions as a vital link in this respect said Mendis.    Prajeeth Balasubramaniam of Klevenberg (Pvt) Ltd., Upali Bandaranayake of Forbes Services (Pvt) Ltd. and Rohitha Mendis of Prudential Shipping Lines (Pvt) Ltd. were elected as Vice Presidents respectively. The following Members were elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the Sri Lanka-Singapore Business Council: Janaka Gunasekara, Director – Agri Input, A Baur & Co. Ltd., Sarath Fernando, Chief Executive Officer, Bogawantalawa Tea Estates Ltd., B.C. Tan, Director, Ceylon Grain Elevators Ltd., Govind Nangrani, Chief Executive Officer, Cyber Soft (Pvt) Ltd. and Ashique Ali, Managing Director, Mindspring (Pvt) Ltd.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce acts as the Secretariat of the Sri Lanka-Singapore Business Council.