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| Wednesday, 20 October 2004 |
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Swisscontact to boost economic development in NCP and East Swisscontact (Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation) has decided to promote local economic development benefiting the population in and around the North Central Province and the Eastern Districts in an equitable and sustainable way. "The main focus will be on access to markets, particularly for smallholder farmers, and access to business development services (BDS) and credit for growth-oriented Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)". This was made known at a media briefing yesterday in Colombo to introduce additional service, Senior Expert Corps (SEC). The Swisscontact Pool of Experts offers consultancies in a large number of sectors such as tourism, food-processing, construction, light engineering, textile and handicrafts, adult education, environmental protection and many other sectors. A SEC assignment is well planned beforehand. The problem or opportunity to be addressed is thoroughly identified, be it of technical nature or management related. SEC services are normally free, the first time except for the local costs such as accommodation, meals and local transport and normally last from one to three months. Resident Representative, Swisscontact Sri Lanka Stefan D. Butscher said that the SEC consisted of more than 600 retired professionals who carry out approximately 150 assignments annually in countries where Swisscontact is active. "Swisscontact now promotes the SEC in Sri Lanka and links interested parties to these Swiss experts", he said. Managing Director Aitken Spence Hotel Management, Malin Hapugoda said that from his perspective, there were several areas which needed expert attention and in the event where expertise was not available from within Sri Lanka, there was no recourse but to obtain expertise from abroad. "In the case of Aitken Spence, our first option was to seek Swiss expertise since Switzerland is well recognised for its hospitality industry". Hapugoda said that he was sure that there were many other industries in Sri Lanka who would benefit from foreign expertise with regard to product improvement, quality assurance and even marketing. "If they can seek expert advice from Swisscontact's SEC program which comes at a low cost, solutions to critical areas could be found and I hope that other industries too would utilise the services of SEC", he said. Swisscontact is a politically and religiously neutral international non-governmental development organisation that was established in 1959 by representatives of the Swiss private sector and universities. Swisscontact has been working in Sri Lanka since 1981 mainly in skills development and small and medium enterprise promotion at various levels. Swisscontact also strongly supports women in micro enterprises and works on improving access to market-oriented skills development for unemployed youth and unskilled workers. SEC Member, Michael Hirsch-Lorenz, Human Resource Manager, Aitken Spence Hotel Management, Kumar Perera and SEC Co-ordinator Swisscontact Sri Lanka, Charmaine Jayasekera were also present. |
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