Friday, 17 April 2015 04:25
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Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka and Finance PLC (MBSL), together with Lanka Training and Education Academy (LTEA) with the assistance of Sri Lanka Federation of Industrial Associations, has organised a series of conferences for the Small and Medium Enterprises around the country.
These conferences have been organised to assist the entrepreneurs to enhance their knowledge in trade and marketing, financial management, investment, access to lending and CRIB operations and to provide them with various other services. The first conference of the series was held in Gampaha on 7 April with a participation of over 200 entrepreneurs in the area.
Upali Samaradivakara – National Organiser, Sri Lanka Federation of Industrial Associations delivered the welcome speech opening the session, while M.S.K. Darmawardena – Assistant Director of Employee Provident Fund of Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Dr. Rukmal Weerasinghe – Senior Lecturer of Sri Jayawadenapura University’s Department of Entrepreneurship and well known economist R.M.D. Senanayake also participated in the workshop as guest speakers.
Further, Indika Dissanayake: Assistant Manager Operations of Credit Information Bureau of Sri Lanka (CRIB) also conducted an important session on ‘Importance of maintaining an accurate CRIB report’ which is vital for SME entrepreneurs.
MBSL Chairman, Ruwan Gallage expressing his views to the media about the program explained the importance of developing the SME sector in the country. He further said: “As the pioneer Merchant Bank in the country MBSL has been in the forefront of helping the business community of Sri Lanka for the past 34 years. Now we are stronger than before, after the merger with a savings bank and a finance company, now MBSL has a verity of services to offer you and with a branch network of 50 covering all parts of the country. Our aim is to build a strong SME sector through our services and to develop SMEs into large scale business entities, where one day we can help them to list in the Colombo Stock Exchange to become corporate giants.”
A question and answer session was also held at the end of the event where the participants were able to interact with the speakers to clarify and to get feedback for their issues.
The organisers are planning to hold these types of conferences in many other parts of the country to assist SME sector to uplift their business operations.
