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A collaborative initiative between Security Force Headquarters-Mullaittivu (SFHQ-MLT) and the District Secretary for Mullaittivu and garment industrialists to establish a new garment factory in Sri Lanka has given a pathway to a new training centre.
The training centre has been launched in order to train potential 35 ladies and youths who are later expected to join the garment industry. Introduced by Global Design Tex (Pvt.) Ltd., the training centre will provide garment industry job opportunities to people in Mullaittivu District, Sri Lanka.
Under the Phase I of the training project, Global Design Tex will recruit some 35 aspirants in the garment industry. In Phase 2, it expects to establish 300-employee rich garment factory in the same area.
The inaugural ceremony of the Training Centre was attended by Major General Dampath Fernando, Commander, Security Forces – MLT; Rupawathi Kethishwari, District Secretary for Mullaittivu; Gunabalan, Divisional Secretary for Maritime Pattu; Maheshika Kularatne, Co-Director, Global Design Tex; and Sampath Madarasinghe, Chief Executive Officer, Global Design Tex.
The Generalized Scheme of Preference Plus (GSP Plus), approved by the European Union Foreign and Trade Ministers Council for country, is set to become a reality soon for Sri Lanka, which has bagged approval from the EU on its application to obtain key trade concessions. This was informed by Sri Lanka’s Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha De Silva. “It’s now done. Effective in less than two weeks,” he tweeted.
It may be mentioned here that human rights violation in Sri Lanka cost the country losing its EU GSP Plus status in 2009. The new Government, which assumed office in 2015, began talks with the EU to regain GSP Plus and agreed to meet most of the conditions to obtain the facility. Sri Lanka reapplied for the EU GSP facility in June last year.
Currently there are eight GSP+ beneficiaries among developing countries. The trade preferences will allow Sri Lanka to export more products to its biggest market accounting for nearly a third of the global exports.
Long Island Clothing Company (LiCC), a firebrand jeans retailer, has launched an innovative range of waterproof jeans. Titled LiCC Liberté, this brand is expected to take the denim jeans to another level.
Expected to withstand the onslaught of rain and thunderstorm, the new style revolution from LiCC will not only keep the jeans dry during rain but also fashionable. “No retailer in the Sri Lankan market has launched a local product as such and we at LiCC wanted to be the first to launch the water proof jeans. We target all the bikers in Sri Lanka so as to make them ride with freedom and confidence. It is not merely the bikers who will benefit from this fabulous brand but each person who has felt the discomfort of being soaked to the bone in a pair of wet jeans,” remarked Yasotharan, CEO of LiCC.
To lure customers of all ages and groups in Sri Lanka, the apparel retailer also offers nine other segments of top-of-the-range denim jeans. These are The Fast Lane, Rhythm and Blues, Bohemian Vibes, Dé Sarong, Blazed Blueprints, Coloré Monde, Indigo Grunge, Leather Lore and Prime Melangé.
“We at LiCC have revolutionized the concept of jeans in Sri Lanka by revamping the styles and trends to suit the modern wearer. Our mantra is to offer chic styles incorporated with maximum comfort. Denim jeans are a must-have in any wardrobe and we specialise in offering the most varied and versatile range through our creative collection. Through this innovative brand, LiCC has taken the Sri Lankan fashion industry by storm,” added Yasotharan.
Sri Lanka’s apparel exports for the first two months of 2017 slipped 11.48 per cent YoY to US $ 788 million, with exports to the US falling 6.38 per cent YoY to US $ 368 million; exports to the EU dropped 19.14 per cent YoY to US $ 310 million; and exports to other markets tumbled 3.25 per cent YoY to US $ 110 million.
According to Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters’ Association (SLAEA), apparel exports from the country for February fell 14.97 per cent YoY to US $ 377 million, with US $ 170 million or a 8.81 per cent YoY decline in exports to the US, while exports to the European Union (EU) fell 23.57 per cent YoY to US $ 155 million. Exports to other markets fell 3.97 per cent YoY to US $ 52 million.
“It’s a strange situation. We discussed this at the last council meeting and all the large producers said that their order books for January and February had been full, unlike in 2016,” SLAEA Chairman Felix Fernando was quoted as saying.
The Index of Industrial Production maintained by the Census and Statistics Department has also noted decline in Year-on-year (YoY) growth for apparel manufacturing during January and February.
Sri Lanka’s largest apparel exporter – Brandix has been ranked country’s most valuable export brand for the third consecutive year in Brand Finance’s 2017 ranking of the country’s leading brands. It also won Gold and two special awards for excellence in ‘Talent Management’ and ‘Learning & Development’ at the 2015-16 National Human Capital Management (HCM) Awards gala (formerly known as the National HRM Awards), once again demonstrating the Group’s commitment to its people.
The most valuable brand tag was given to the garment exporter due to its corporate vision, reputation and image; leadership and people; degree of innovation and quality consciousness.
“The scale or size of the exporter plays a key role in being included in our listing, as it is based on the perceptions of survey respondents who are middle to senior managers in business,” Brand Finance said in its segment titled ‘Strongest Export Brands’.
“If the European Union consumers knew the extremely abusive working conditions of the women who produce the clothes they buy from Sri Lanka, they would be ashamed,” said Lola Sánchez Caldentey, Member of European Parliament (MEP). These comments came in the wake of her recent visit to Sri Lanka, with fellow MEP Anne-Marie Mineur, to evaluate labour rights in the country’s garment industry, which accounts for about half of Sri Lanka’s total exports.
Sri Lanka’s labour rights regime is under scrutiny as the EU will decide next month whether the country is entitled to preferential trade access to the EU under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) regime. Poor human rights records had led to the suspension of the country from GSP+ since 2010.
During the visit, the Sri Lankan Government committed to labour rights improvements, such as allowing trade union access to export processing zones, a revision of the labour law and of the union threshold and ensuring that the benefits of the preferential trade status would be shared with the workers.
Considering that EU is Sri Lanka’s second-largest trading partner, it is worth noting that this decision has far-reaching consequences. “The European Union should not grant a special trade status to Sri Lanka if the money coming from the advantages of this status would remain only in the pockets of a few businessmen. We are willing to give preferences to Sri Lanka, but only if we are sure that the benefit will go to the workers,” mentioned Caldentey.
The MEPs expressed serious concern over the implementation of legislation that was to address human rights violations during the visit.
More than 150 public and private sector representatives participated in the first-ever National Symposium to carve out Sri Lanka’s National Export Strategy (NES). The symposium was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently.
Sri Lanka has been noticing decline in exports for the last two years. This symposium, an initiative of Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade and Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB), was the need of the hour for the nation which has been noticing decline in exports for the last two years.
The development of an NES is a central component of the ‘EU-Sri Lanka trade-related assistance: Increasing SMEs trade competitiveness in regional and EU markets’ project, which is funded by the European Union and implemented by the International Trade Centre.
The Government wants to extend its support to Sri Lanka’s economic vision of strengthening the competitiveness of the country’s private sector to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth.
The Prime Minister’s Economic Policy Statement emphasized that new strategies were required to undertake necessary reforms to increase, diversify and introduce innovation in export development. This would in turn increase revenue, create employment opportunities and reduce Sri Lanka’s trade deficit.
Exports will play a pivotal role if the Government’s vision of making Sri Lanka the next economic success story in Asia is to become reality.
MAS Holdings, a technology apparel design-to-delivery solutions provider based in Sri Lanka, has announced the location of its first manufacturing and development centre in Asheboro, USA with an investment of US $ 20 million. The centre will create 133 new jobs.
The apparel manufacturer has been working to integrate technology into clothing, partnering with startup companies in the Silicon Valley region of California and in New York in the fields of wearable technology and health and wellness. Its selection of North Carolina location includes a pending acquisition of Acme-McCrary, a textile manufacturer in Asheboro. Additionally, as per Roy Cooper, Governor, North Carolina (USA), the region enjoys a worldwide reputation as a centre for textile research and workers. Excellent business climate and location offer international firms an ideal place to reach and serve customers in the United States.
“We are delighted to be associated with Acme-McCrary, whose values and philosophy are very much in alignment with MAS. Our presence in the Western Hemisphere enables us to strengthen our value propositions of speed and flexibility offered through on-shore and near-shore operations to our customers. It also enables us to engage and strengthen our continued association with academia and research institutions in the U.S. We are appreciative of the support and assistance extended to us by the state, county, city and its officials and look forward to integrating and contributing to the community in North Carolina,” said Mahesh Amalean, Chairman, MAS Holdings.
A performance-based grant of US $ 575,000 from the One North Carolina Fund will help facilitate MAS Holdings’ location into Randolph County. Furthermore, to its new job-creation target, the company is required to retain 374 jobs located in North Carolina at Acme-McCrary.
Apparel exports contribute almost 46 per cent to Sri Lanka’s total exports and nearly 80 per cent workforce in Sri Lankan apparel factories is of women. Experts feel that it is quite alarming to see that the apparel sector is experiencing a difficulty in filling vacancies even in the occupation category, like sewing operators, where women dominate. A research, ‘An Empirical Investigation of Labour Shortage in the Manufacturing Sector in Sri Lanka’ by Prof. Athula Ranasinghe, Sunimalee Madurawala, Dr. Jen Je Su and Thushara Senadeera funded by the Australia Awards Fellowship Programme 2016, Sri Lanakan newspaper ‘Daily Mirror’ published an article which highlights given below five reasons for this situation:
1. Women machine operators in Sri Lanka are facing derogatory term like ‘Juki girls’. Due to this low social recognition and the bad reputation of women workers, young women are reluctant to join the industry. The report also adds that this stems from safety concerns for females and exposure to sexual harassment and abuse resulting from poor infrastructure facilities (inadequate transport and housing near factories).
2. Mobility/proximity issues is a concern, especially for married and women with children. Due to their familial responsibilities, these women don’t want to migrate and work in urban areas or in the free trade zones, where many garment factories are located. Due to difficulty in finding safe accommodation, even single women are hesitant to live in urban areas
3. Sectors like tourism and retail creating competition for apparel industry as these sectors are offering good wages. Not only that, good working environment in these industries also plays an important role in this regard.
4. With good education, now there are more options available for the younger generation. Their career aspirations have also changed. Instead of apparel factory’s ‘target-oriented hardworking machine operator jobs’, they seek for more prestigious computer-based jobs, where they can enjoy more flexibility and social interaction.
5. Looking to all these points, experts suggest that competitive salaries and creating better and pleasant working environments, giving more social recognition, more gender-sensitive working options and facilities (flexible working hours, working from home and work sharing, professionalization of jobs and creating clear career paths would help in attracting more women to the industry. Few of the factories are even running campaigns like ‘Women Go Beyond’, ‘Abhimani’.
The Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters Association (SLAEA) has urged the Sri Lankan Government to abolish the Simplified Suspended Value Added Tax (SVAT) scheme or exempt the apparel industry from the tax.
According to SLAEA, recent figures pertaining to FDI were not great partly due to the fact that the ease of doing business in the country was bad as exporters indulged in more bank borrowings in the short term. It may be noted that the apparel exporters were previously exempted from Value Added Tax.
Though the country could no longer depend on the apparel exports industry as countries like Bangladesh which had cheaper labour were more competitive in the apparel export sector and market, it could on the other hand capitalize on being internationally recognized in terms of quality and delivery, as per Felix Fernando, Chiarman, SLAEA. He emphasized that the labour would have to be trimmed down by 20 per cent.
“In terms of products and styles, it is advisable for us to make more and more value additions. Factories may close, yet more revenue must be earned from the limited number of factory complexes. Hong Kong has the hub concept. Sri Lanka too can be a sourcing hub as the buyers have recognized the open market. Elsewhere, there must be definite modernization and industrialization in terms of technology and machinery. Capital allowances can be invested in it. The incorporation of new technologies will result in efficiency, help existing workers be more productive and break the monotonous nature of their jobs,” underlined Fernando.
Hela Clothing, a leading Sri Lankan apparel manufacturer, has partnered with Microsoft in order to embraced digital transformation to revitalize the apparel industry.
The manufacturer chose Office 365 as its preferred means of collaborating and communicating in the workforce. Comprehensive and congruent, Office 365 includes email, team chat services, personal cloud file sharing, shared document workspaces, an enterprise portal and more. It also replaced Red Hat Virtualization with Microsoft Hyper-V, a platform aimed at consolidating company’s digital infrastructure to remote desktop and application virtualization systems. As a resultant, the platform decreased capital expenditure such as power and physical space.
“Focusing on digital transformation with Microsoft’s secure and comprehensive cloud enabled platforms has played a crucial role in our success. Now that Microsoft has reduced our capex on server hardware and increased real-time communication, productivity at Hela Clothing is at an all-time high. With Microsoft, we will remain committed to innovating and accelerating insightful intelligence across the apparel sector,” said Thilina Samarasinghe, Head – IT, Hela Clothing Group.
Shilpa Abhimani National Handicrafts Awards have been given to 600 craftsmen who emerged winners of Handicrafts Competition held alongside SAARC Handicraft Exhibition in November 2016 in Sri Lanka. Over 30,000 participants took part in the first ever national handicrafts expo held in the country.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Minister of Industry & Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen and State Minister of Industry & Commerce Champika Premadasa attended the award distribution ceremony held in Polgolla earlier this month.
The winners were selected from varied handicraft segments – mats, fibres, jute, cotton, cane & bamboo, metal, masks & puppets, carvings, textiles & textile-based items, lace, lacquer works, wood-based crafts, leather crafts, stone-based crafts and paintings & sculptures and even specialized crafts such as Batik and Sri Lanka’s own Dumbara designs.
