Reviving the legacy of local craftsmanship

• NDB continues to support home-grown SMEs

Reiterating its commitment to uplift the local industry, NDB recently hosted a special event at the Lighthouse Hotel in Galle, with the aim to create awareness on the mask making industry in Sri Lanka amongst tourists.  

Several skilled craftsmen from the southern village of Ambalangoda, famed for its heritage of craftsmanship, were present at the event displaying their skills to a captivated audience of tourists. The event attracted many tourists visiting the locality where they were able to witness the masks being crafted with utmost care and diligence.

The tourists were also able to purchase masks and sculptures at the event that featured a colourful range of hand crafted souvenirs, home décor and collectibles. The cultural evening was another highlight of the evening where visitors enjoyed a series of traditional dance acts and fire stunts.

Earlier this year, NDB took the initiative to revive this valued handcraft industry with an aim to regain interest within the market for these products, while providing the craftsman with wider market accessibility.

In this direction, the bank organised a workshop to educate them on the escalating economic boom and the rising opportunities arising with the resultant growth of tourism and export segments. The workshop focused on sharing the much needed business know-how, financial awareness as well as marketing and branding tips to the mask makers.

The program held at the Lighthouse Hotel in Galle intended to further these efforts to revive the waning industry. The event enabled the craftsmen todisplay their mastery amidst the tourists and entice them towards purchasing productsbased on the authenticity of these unique, handcrafted masterpieces.  

The bank’s key aim in this exercise was to create a platform that enabled the tourists to personally experience these products and encourage them to purchase items, thus creating global awareness of the industry. The bank believes that facilitating direct contact with global consumers would open doors for the local craftsmen to gain easy access to global markets in time to come. Reviving the waning traditional industries in the country and creating better export opportunities for such entrepreneurs is a priority focus in NDB’s agenda for SME development. NDB’s initiative in the southern province to uplift the mask making industry and the similar program initiated in Minuwangoda recently to revive the local handloom industry are first steps of an island-wide program which aims to reinforce identified traditional industries; by widening market access and reawakening interest in such products within the marketplace in order to develop their export potential.

NDB strongly believes that this can contribute immensely to the anticipated economic boom in the country while continuously improving the standards of local entrepreneurs. NDB has been a pioneer in SME lending for over 30 years and the bank’s services extend beyond financial assistance to provide advisory services through workshops and empower the grass root level industrialists through livelihood development schemes such as ‘DiviAruna’.

The bank has gained vast experience through its continuous engagement with the SME sector and is very well geared to meet the specific industry needs of SMEs in the country. NDB is one of the fastest growing banks in the country with NDB Group having regional operations in Maldives and Bangladesh.

The bank offers a wide range of commercial banking services through its growing island-wide branch network, catering to an increasing customer base from all walks of life. Through the combined synergies of the diverse constituents of the NDB Group, its customers have access to a full range of banking and financial services; including project finance, corporate banking, SME lending, retail banking, investment banking, stock brokering, wealth management and insurance solutions making NDB a truly universal bank.