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Wednesday, 7 May 2014 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Many businesses experience difficulties in obtaining support to fulfil their international ambitions and Monica works with clients to help them tackle the challenges they are currently facing, such as sustainability, finance and risk, intellectual property, management strength, skills and capabilities, and access to market.
Following are the excerpts of a brief interview during her visit to Sri Lanka:
"Sri Lanka has been registering a 7% GDP growth in the last couple of years (post war) and is poised to unleash a more robust growth and development agenda in tourism, BPO/IT industry and infrastructure to support the increased economic activity. Entrepreneurs, start-ups and angel networks are now looking for funding for hydro, eco tourism, renewable energy and water management projects in today’s booming economy that is targeting to be $ 100 dollars by 2016 – www.theceip.com"
Q: Could you briefly explain the purpose of your company’s presence in Sri Lanka?
A: Clarkslegal is connected to the Royal Commonwealth Society through the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform (CEIP), which joins entrepreneurs and investors particularly in concentration of environmental technologies. The CEIP hub in Sri Lanka is run by Motha Capital Investments which is involved in environmental projects on renewable energy. Clarkslegal thinks that Sri Lanka is a really exciting place as it functions as a hub for the entire Asian region, which seems like a really attractive place to do business. As a country which has great connectivity between airports and ports and also the internet structure and the tourist industry makes it a very attractive place to visit and also makes it very attractive to do business. Sri Lanka also has a very high level of human knowledge expertise which displays that Sri Lanka is a global partner. It is all about this global interchange of experience and expertise and how countries can both benefit from that exchange of talent and exchange of investment which sums up Clarkslegal’s presence in Sri Lanka.
Q: What are the steps Clarkslegal has taken to enable global movement and responsible investment?
A: Each hub that operates in their respective country is aware of their local customs and regulations. But it is a network based on integrity and relationships, so it is not only investment just to anything, it is the environmental investments. We are all suffering from climate change and it is our global responsibility which needs ethical investments that has sustainability where both of our countries benefit. We have moved away from the old fashioned concept of migration and at present what we see is an exchange of expertise by knowledge. So we have people coming to Sri Lanka to learn the niche strength of the Sri Lankan industries. Universities have setup campuses which are interested in training students in two different jurisdictions. What I have seen during my short visit is that Sri Lanka has lots of Sri Lankans who are very proud of their heritage. But they would want to get a world view and would go and work in different countries, experience different economies and they may stay there. But what you would see is that they are being pulled back to their roots, so you have a wide expatriate community that enjoys a global lifestyle. Particularly for the UK which is a developed market we need that expertise and high talent that Sri Lankan workers bring to the UK and we are benefiting from that. Sri Lanka is also benefiting from our niche expertise which they can bring back with the investments from overseas markets.
Q: What is Clarkslegal’s role in the upcoming event at the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform?
A: Clarkslegal is one of the partner organisations and we help fund the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform and have a common Chairman. We work with the Royal Commonwealth Society which is one of our sponsored organisations. We put a lot of time and effort in to making sure that the hubs are well run and share integrity and you build this reputation as you are only as good as your relationship and you are only as good as your reputation. So building that exchange of entrepreneurs who have innovations, who can meet and talk to each other or they could ask for international investments for their ideas. Their ideas are generated in their locality so each country will have different issues to resolve. Lot of projects that we have been involved are the renewable energies and renewable waste projects. Solar energy is picking up so it’s those kinds of projects that we are involved at the moment.
Q: How will the participating countries, especially Sri Lanka benefit from the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform?
A: These are environmental projects for example Motha Capital Investments which ensures environmental friendly infrastructure projects and about energy projects which are really important for Sri Lanka. It is making sure that any good environment technology wherever it is in the Commonwealth Sri Lanka will get to know about it and you will benefit from it. The participating countries will share their ideas among the entrepreneurs and they can pull in investors. We help them to develop their ideas in to something attractive for investors. Sri Lankans are really eager to have good infrastructure particularly solid environmental projects which will yield maximum benefits from the country’s weather situations. So being in an international forum and having the ability to talk globally can immensely benefit the participating countries.
Q: How does the Forbury Inve-stment Network come in to play at the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform?
A: Our concentration is on the environmental investment as those are the projects we need to be associated with as we need to make the world a better place. We cannot say that as lawyers but we provide a service and this is what has made a real difference. It is an organisation set up in the UK, a UK organisation with UK graduates and other universities can bring their ideas to the UK market and there are overseas investors that take part. Forbury Investment Network (FIN) was launched in 2010 to facilitate investment in early- and growth-stage businesses in the technology sectors. Securing funding to develop new sustainable technologies and services is often a major hurdle for many businesses, particularly start-ups and those lacking an established track-record. Support for small and medium size businesses and academic institutions is urgently required and it is on this basis FIN was developed.
