Recognising commerce excellence in a post-war nation
Monday, 12 January 2015 00:48
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By Senuri De Silva
Recognising contributions made by the private and public sector to the development of the Sri Lankan economy, the bi-annual Global Commerce Excellence Awards was held in Colombo recently.
The award scheme was created to recognise companies, institutions, banks, including the public sector, along with individuals who have contributed large-scale support to the country’s GDP growth in the global commerce industry in post-war Sri Lanka.
The Chief Guest was the former Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal.
“There are many people who have contributed to Sri Lanka’s economic story for a long period of time through extremely difficult time. They went through pain and uncertainty and they continued to support the economy and today we are able to realise our dreams because of the very intense work that they put in,” he said.
The impact made on the economy by these players of both the private and public sector during Sri Lanka’s trying conflict period has been crucial in enabling the rapid development that has been possible since its end. Speaking of the importance of the private-public relationship and its effect on the economy, especially to achieve the economic goals of the country he said: “It’s important to reflect on the private-public partnership that has gone into the latest developments of the recent past which has enabled us to look at the future with a great deal of confidence and to have hope in the future once again.”
The end of the conflict gives Sri Lanka the opportunity to work on reaching economic goals, with a much larger portion of the GDP being focused on national development rather than national security as has been done for the last 30 years as the Governor said,
“The last five years have been a very exciting time for us. We have been able to leave behind many instances of uncertainty and take decisions which have been more in line with the commercial factors that we need to be concerned about and that is the new trend that will hopefully lead us to greater heights and new business opportunities and truly usher prosperity into our land,” Cabraal said.
Pix by Upul Abayasekara
