Sri Lanka's Apex Organisation for Export Promotion
The World Expo is one of the oldest and largest international events taking place every 5 years and lasting for 6 month where everyone can learn, innovate and create progress by sharing ideas and working together through a common theme. United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been selected as the host country for the forthcoming event to be held in year 2020. This World Expo will be held for a period of six months from 20th October 2020 to 10th April 2021 in Dubai under the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”. The World Expo in Dubai in 2020 will be the first to be held in the MENA & SA (Middle East and North Africa & South Asia Region.
The National Export Strategy (NES) is progressing in the right direction. It has six focused areas and is expected to provide the impetus for the export drive supporting economic growth, Chairperson of the Export Development Board (EDB), Indira Malwatte said.
UAE is blessed with a strategic location between the East and West, which makes it accessible to major emerging economies, linking shipping routes and facilitating goods' transportation between the various regions in Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa. Understanding the preciousness of the location, the business community has launched GULFOOD Food & Beverage exhibition in 1987 in Dubai and the exhibition has grown to promote F&B trade between more than 180 countries annually. In 2018 Gulfood set records with 97,000 visitors attending and over 5000 companies from over 185 different countries exhibiting their products.
Sri Lanka needs to make greater efforts to get into the US market using the United States Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) scheme as a tool while ensuring that buyers are aware of GSP, said Dr. Fredrik Leuhusen from the School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Sri Lanka’s merchandise and service exports in 2018 are estimated to have hit an all-time high of $ 17 billion, up 15% from a year earlier prompting the Government to be confident of achieving the $20 billion milestone this year.
The 22nd Presidential Export Awards Ceremony was held to celebrate the outstanding achievements of the Exporters at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH) in Colombo, on September 18, 2018, under the patronage of His Excellency Maithripala Sirisena the President of Sri Lanka.
Following is the address by Minister Malik Samarawickrama at the Presidential Export Awardson 18 September
