185th Annual General Meeting

Good Evening, Our Chief Guest this evening, His Excellency Santosh Jha, High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Members of Parliament, Heads of Diplomatic Missions, Secretaries of Ministries, Heads of Institutions, Past Chairpersons of the Ceylon Chamber, Members of the Board & Committee, Members of the Chamber, CEO and Secretary General Mr. Buwaneka Perera, Secretariat of the Chamber, Distinguished invitees, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you, Excellency, for accepting our invitation and gracing this occasion as the Chief Guest this evening. We are privileged to have you attend the AGM as the country looks to switch gears from stability to growth. We are deeply appreciative of the support that India has provided towards economic stability, and we look forward in strengthening of ties to drive Sri Lanka’s growth prospects. In November 2023, we hosted the India Sri Lanka Business Summit which was graced by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon. Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India. In the year ahead, we want to encourage greater bilateral integration and engagement with countries like India through an export-led investment and tourism model will help facilitate the private sector as the engine of growth.

Sustaining Reforms and Accelerating Growth

We are now witnessing an emergence of growth after the economic crisis of 2022. The first quarter growth during 2024 of 5.3% provides optimism that we may see growth above 3% for the year. Earnings from tourism and remittance inflows are returning to pre-crisis levels while there has been a significant decline in inflation and interest rates from their recent record highs. The recent disbursement of the third tranche of the IMF program provides confidence to the market and investors that Sri Lanka is delivering on the reform program. A swift conclusion of the external debt restructuring will help the country to gain a credit ratings upgrade. The Government has been bold in pushing through difficult reforms such as the energy sector with the passing of the Energy Bill and debt management with the Public Debt Management legislation. However, much more reform to unlock growth is required.

With elections due this year, maintaining the reform momentum and ensuring continuity of IMF program will have to be prioritised by all political parties. Deviation from this path without a credible plan will result in Sri Lanka heading back towards a second default. In this context, the Chamber will be releasing soon its set of proposals to accelerate growth with targets for key economic variables for 2030 and a comprehensive set of proposals for sectors and enabler that can unlock growth. We aim to discuss these proposals with all political parties as they form their election manifestos.

Priority is our Members

While the Chamber has been focused on improving the macroeconomic environment through continuous policy advocacy efforts our focus in the last 12 months have been in meeting the needs and challenges of our members. Unlocking the bottlenecks faced by our members is paramount to sustaining the turnaround of the economy and enabling the private sector to truly be the engine of growth. As such, we have streamlined the impact of the Chamber around three pillars: Policy Advocacy, Engagement and Market Access.

During the year we successfully implemented the SAPB1 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. The ERP solution will enable the Ceylon Chamber to optimise and streamline operations, enabling faster and more efficient delivery of its wide range of business facilitation services. I must congratulate the Chamber Secretariat for this achievement.

Policy Advocacy – Driving Private Sector Interest with Policymakers

For policy advocacy, our focus is on influencing legislation, safeguarding business interests, and promoting economic growth, delivering tangible benefits to our Members. In this regard, the Chamber Board regularly engaged with the President, Opposition parties, trade unions and civil society. While the purpose of these engagements has been to provide the private sector view, it has also been an opportunity to generate a consensus for the reform agenda. Despite different ideologies from these stakeholders, we are pleased to see the receptiveness towards the reform policies espoused and the importance of the private sector in this process.

The Chamber also engaged with the IMF to provide the business perspective towards reform measures. We had the privilege of engaging with the IMF Deputy Managing Director Kenji Okamura during his visit in June 2023.The Chamber continued its engagement with multilateral institutions like the World Bank, ADB, IFC, and UNDP who are critical partners in the reform agenda. We believe these efforts have contributed towards a sounder business environment in the last 6-12 months.

We have made 35 plus submissions to the government on issues ranging from power and energy, finance and environment. We were successful in having 24 of our recommendations included in the National Budget 2024, deferring of the proposed SVAT repeal, preparing a structure for the Digital ID implementation plan and recommendations were considered in revising the Food Safety Policy. We continued to drive efforts related to SOE reform and focused our work on providing input to the SOE Restructuring unit on matters related to divestment, and the communication of reforms. Our inputs towards the energy reform process contributed to the recent passing of the new Electricity bill. In the agriculture sector, we have been involved in the Agriculture Policy Development Committee under the Presidential Secretariat.

With the input of our members, we have provided the private sector input during the nine rounds of negotiations for the Sri Lanka-Thailand FTA and continue to do so for on-going negotiations on enhancing the FTA with India in particular on the garment quota issue and streamlining of standards. We will continue to provide input to FTA negotiations with China and Preferential Trade Agreements with Indonesia and Bangladesh while also providing views on the tariff policy desired by industry.

On the health sector with the engagement of the pharmaceutical associations affiliated with the Chamber, we have engaged the Ministry of Health in streamlining the NMRA approval process, advocating for improvement in the quality of pharmaceutical products procured and the need for a robust and transparent procurement system while requesting for a transparent and suitable pricing formula with policymakers.

Facilitating Engagement and Market Access for Our members

We have also helped members to expand their reach and enter new markets. We were able to launch two Business Councils namely The Sri Lanka- Indonesia Business Council and the Sri Lanka Bangladesh Business Council catering to the requirements of our members seeking growing export markets with high potential.

Export promotion was at the top of the agenda with 35 plus trade promotion and networking events. The Chamber organised the India – Sri Lanka Business Summit, received high-level delegations from Vietnam and Thailand and met regularly with the diplomatic community to identify business opportunities.

Supporting SMEs to access markets was on the agenda with targeted training and capacity-building programmes across the island. We engaged with the community through enhancing the role of entrepreneurship in nation building. This was achieved through our collaboration with the ILO through the SALE project where 7500 plus students across the country were engaged through workshops and training programs. A key highlight of this was the island-wide SPARK Youth Entrepreneurship competition which demonstrated the immense talent and innovative ability of our youth.

During the year we have had 25 plus knowledge transfer sessions engaging 2100 participants. This has included our flagship events like the Outlook report, Sri Lanka Economic Summit and Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Award. In addition, we introduced 2 new events this year to help foster greater market access and engagement. Focusing on the need for climate action, the inaugural Sri Lanka Climate Summit-2024 was organized to explore the dual reality of climate risks and opportunities and specific climate threats facing Sri Lanka. As Chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), the IORA Business Conclave was organized to promote business opportunities among the 23 member and 12 partner states. Through these events we have engaged 2100 participants

Way Forward

The Chamber will continue to boldly lead the private sector in managing the economy from stability to growth. We will strive to push forward the reform agenda during the year ahead, keeping in mind potential challenges posed by elections. Our strategy will be to continue to engage with all political parties and ensure the foundational economic structure achieved over the last few years does not erode.

We will continue to focus on enabling our members to thrive, and advocate for pro-growth policies. We will encourage our firms to find new markets and explore avenues for further business integration with global markets. We are keen to provide more value enhancing services to our members and build a thriving business environment. We look forward to your suggestions and input to help build on the work carried out last year

I am grateful for the support extended by the Vice Chairman and Deputy Vice Chairman, members of the Board, Past Chairmen, Chamber Committee, Sector and Steering Committees for their inputs during the last year. I have had the privilege of interacting with the Chamber’s network of Business Councils, Associations, Regional Chambers and our members.

My work as Chairman would not be possible without a professional Chamber staff to whom I am grateful for their support in implementing our strategic initiatives. The Chamber continues to be grateful to policymakers, political parties, unions, multilateral and bilateral development agencies and the diplomatic community that has interacted with us closely in the last few years. We look forward to working with these stakeholders to facilitate a conducive environment for the private sector as we reset the economy on a sustainable growth trajectory.

Let me take this opportunity to once again thank you Excellency Santosh Jha for gracing this occasion and look forward to the continued strong relationship between the Chamber and the High Commission of India.

Thank You all for your attention and I look forward to your continued support in the year ahead!