Inaugural Fisheries Expo from Nov 6-8:

Lanka to unveil full potential in fisheries exports, investments

Ravi Ladduwahetty

Sri Lanka’s unlimited and hitherto untapped investment opportunities and export potential in the fisheries sector will come into vogue when a joint private/ public sector exhibition- Fisheries Expo 2008 unveils at the Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre from November 6 to 8.

Kosala Wickremanayake

The exhibition, billed to open this Friday and continue till Sunday, is hosted on a private/ public sector partnership- by the apex trade chamber - the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Sri Lanka (FCCISL) and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development. The event, the first of its kind and hurriedly arranged, will be at the Convention Centre, and moved permanently to the BMICH from 2009 onwards where it will be held annually.

The exhibition, jointly hosted by the FCCISL, GTZ and the Government of Iceland, a country which is an industry leader in the fisheries sector, will also see technology transfers, joint ventures between the two countries. FCCISL President Kosala Wickremanayake told ‘Daily News Business’ that the liberation of the Eastern Province will also see a host of opportunities for foreign Direct Investment and joint ventures with top local corporate for almost unlimited investment opportunities in the East Coast.

There will also be employment youth in the Province, deprived of economic empowerment for the last two decades.

Over 30 large scale buyers are billed to arrive in Colombo for the inaugural parley but real numbers are expected to be many fold when the exhibition will be better organised from next year onwards

This will emit the right signals for second generation youth of fisher families who are currently abandoning the industry in quest of white collar jobs due to dwindling opportunities in the sector for the last two decades. Also will be the potential for developing tourism and especially whale watching, a hitherto exercise between local corporates and the Fisheries Habour Corporation, now limited to the Southern coastal towns of Dikwella and Tangalle and Puttalam in the western coast.