SriLankan offices
SriLankan Airlines will soon open two new ticket offices in the island – in Ratnapura and Badulla. The office in Ratnapura will open on November 19 and the office in Badulla on November 21, the airline said.
Passenger sales agents appointed by SriLankan will run both offices. M/s Air Travel and Tours will be in charge of the Ratnapura office which will be located at Ramzi Gems building, 1/1, Senanayake Road, Ratnapura. The Badulla office will be run by T. G. L. Travels & Tours Pvt Ltd at 18/A Lower King's Street, Badulla.
SriLankan Airlines has two ticket offices in Colombo (at the World Trade Centre and Landmark building), an office at the Bandaranaike International Airport and offices in Kandy, Galle and Dambulla.
Seminar on survival
The Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka is organising a full-day workshop on "Thinking beyond cost-cutting and survival in a time of national and global crisis – Building an enduring organisation" at the Trans Asia hotel on November 21.
The seminar will be conducted by Gerard D. Muttukumaru, president of the US-based Centre for Global Leadership.
Bullion trading centre
The Bullion Trading Centre of the Commercial Bank was recently opened by Amitha Gooneratne, the bank's managing director at its head office.
The centre will deal in gold sourced from ScotiaMocatta, the London-based bullion trading arm of the Bank of Nova Scotia.
Microsoft partner
Colombo-based Global Business Solutions (GBS), a BOI-approved company, says it has been appointed as a member of the Microsoft Certified Partner Programme.
GBS, which provides enterprise IT solutions specialising in solutions for the financial investment and the retail industries, was selected as a member of this programme due to its proven competence on the latest Microsoft technologies.
A company statement said that as a local Microsoft Certified partner, it is trained, backed and supported 100 percent by Microsoft on all their products.
"Being a member of the programme has given us early access to product information so that when our customers are ready to take advantage of the latest Microsoft technology solution, we already have the experience we need," said Lakmini Wijesundera, GBS managing director.
Bargains at ODEL warehouse
ODEL has opened a warehouse at 38, Dickmans Road, Colombo 5, where customers can purchase surplus stocks at reasonable prices.
The company said prices at the warehouse would range from as little as Rs. 75 to Rs. 475. It would be open from Monday to Friday
Lanka Bell moves on
Lanka Bell, in preparation for a planned expansion in terms of coverage and services, will be moving to the prestigious World Trade Centre Towers from mid-January 2002.
The new office would have staff members from the Bullers Road and some from the Rajagiriya offices including sales and marketing, customer care, strategy and new business development and finance among the departments.
ComBank outlets
The Commercial Bank of Ceylon recently opened a customer service point in two of Colombo's busiest suburbs, Malabe and Mount Lavinia, expanding its branch network to 93 branches.
The new service points are linked up with all islandwide branches, serving points and MiniCom outlets of the bank.
IT campus
The Singapore Informatics City Campus would be inaugurated by Chandra Jayaratne, Chairman, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, on Wednesday, November 21 at the Liberty Plaza in Colombo.
The campus is an expansion of the facilities and courses of the Singapore Informatics Computer Institute. A company statement said the campus would provide students with additional lecture rooms, computer labs, a well-equipped library, an e-learning centre, an International Student Recruitment Centre and a Professional Development Centre for Corporate Training.
Former minister Kingsley Wickremaratne, currently presidential advisor and a PA national list candidate, believes the government should renegotiate the IMF's standby facility. In an interview with journalist Hiran Senewiratne of journalist Hiran Senewiratne of The Sunday Times Business, Wickremaratne answered a series of questions on the economy, the PA's plans if it retains power at the December 5 poll, and said that peace was the need of the hour. Here are extracts of the interview:
Q: Sri Lanka's economy has suffered immensely due to foreign direct investments drying up. What are your plans to stimulate it?
A: I believe that the assurance of peace is the need of the hour. But when we take stock of this situation we find the economic turbulence in many countries in the world has led to recession. Therefore I think in that scenario we have adopted prudent macro-economic policies to create a conducive environment to attract foreign investors.
Q: Investors have been asking for the deregulation of the labour market. How soon will this happen in the event of the PA forming the next government?
A: I think while merging with the global economy, the deregulation of the labour market should be simultaneously accompanied by social justice such as higher wages, transport, medical facilities and education of children. Therefore we are going to adopt proper labour management policies once we come to power.
Q: Education is currently monopolised by the state and there are calls for reforms to enable greater private sector involvement. Is there any strategy to allow the private sector to open up universities or colleges in Sri Lanka?
A: Our government in its educational reforms has encouraged private colleges, institutions and universities. Our main aim is to direct the educational system to suit the global marketplace with partnerships and networks especially in the area of distance learning, enabling ordinary children to obtain an internationally recognised degree without going abroad.
Q: How would you handle the emerging power of the JVP which is always against multinational firms and globalisation?
A: One thing I can say is that the JVP is not against transnationals. But I firmly think the JVP should understand globalisation as a process of change, and they should be aware that if we do not change with change we would be marginalised.
Q: What is your party's economic policy at the forthcoming general election?
A: The core of the PA economic policies is essentially pro-market. We will encourage the private sector and reduce structural rigidities which impede competition and productivity. We will be implementing a totally democratic framework, with the emphasis on good governance and utmost respect for human rights.
Q: What are the challenges for any government that comes into power?
A: I would like to answer in a broader sense that the challenges are the adoption of educational reforms and also value addition in every economic sector. Moving to niche markets are some of the main challenges.
Q: What are your privatisation plans?
A: My view on this issue is that if any public sector enterprise is incurring losses and terminally ill, it should be sold overnight.
Q: How soon will you privatise loss-incurring government entities, and what are these organisations?
A: At present I do not have any figures but we will be going ahead with privatisation to reduce the burden of the government.
Q: Is there a need to protect local manufacturers as well as farmers from cheap imports? Does your party have any plans in this context as many industries complain that imported goods are much cheaper than local goods?
A: I would answer this question in this manner - that is by 2005 the word 'protection' will be out of the consumer dictionary. I must say that the name of the game would be competition. But it does not mean that we should forget our local industries. We must, however, protect our farmers with strong anti-dumping laws.
Q: What are the plans for SriLankan Airlines, Gas, (proposed privatisation of) Ceylon Petroleum Corporation? Will they continue to be with the private sector or regained by the state?
A: The government should distance itself from business and it should allow business to run business. I must say that the role of the government is confined to being a strong regulator and catalyst. Therefore the government and the private sector should work together to achieve the economic goals of the country.
Q: To bridge the budget deficit, do you have any plans to prune the public sector or public spending to maintain the deficit to a manageable level?
A: I believe the public sector should be clean. It should be well paid and given responsibility with authority to attract top quality people for the country's economic development.
Q: Does your party have any plans to re-negotiate with the IMF on the recent standby loan facility?
A: Most probably after the election we should immediately re- negotiate with the IMF and in the long term we should negotiate with the IMF and World Bank on the transfer of new technology.
Q: As the private sector is the engine of growth, in the event of your victory do you have any plans to stimulate private sector growth?
A: Yes, we believe the private sector is the engine of growth and the government should distance itself from business.
Q: What sort of plans do you have to revive the tourist industry?
A: As a person who is involved in the hotel industry, I think we must have peace in the country, which would then automatically revive this industry.
Q: Most economists say that Sri Lanka should achieve 8% growth to be a prosperous country. What plans does your party have in achieving that target?
A: From 1994-2000 we had an average growth of 5%. An average of 8% growth would be necessary in the next five years for the country's progress. Our macro-economic fundamentals are in place for this.
Q: Does your party have any plan to privatise the Colombo Port's Jaye Terminal?
A: The government cannot do business therefore we should dispose of it under government regulations.
Q: Two state banks - People's Bank and Bank of Ceylon - have been incurring massive loses in the past. Is their any plan to privatise these banks?
A: Not yet finalised.
Q: The Postal Service and the Railway Service are also seen as new organisations in the privatisation list. When will these organisations be privatised?
A: One thing I can tell you is that the Internet is making the postal service and the postman obsolete. But I know by 2005 it is our aim to have e-mail boxes in small townships and villages with the target of every household in Sri Lanka having an Internet connection by 2015.
Q: How are you going to handle mounting pressure from various pressure groups which have become an impediment to economic development?
A: Protection of the environment would be our top priority. We have to protect the environment for the sake of our children. Therefore our economic development projects must meet all environmental standards. But we would give approval to go ahead with the projects in spite of protests from pseudo-environmental lobby groups.
Q: Do you have any solutions for the burning unemployment problem in Sri Lanka?
A: Our plan for unemployment is to create a top quality workforce which can earn high wages in the IT sector.
When one needs a medical consultation, time, energy and patience are needed in the laborious process of consulting specialists. e-channelling has come to the rescue of patients who now no longer need to wait in a queue to consult doctors.
Sampath Bank is offering this service - to everybody who wants to consult doctors at Nawaloka and Durdans hospitals - via the Internet through any of its islandwide branches for a nominal figure.
"This healthcare system makes everything so easy and meets a deeply-felt public need," said the CEO of Millennium IT, Tony Weerasinghe.
He said that the e-channel is a service to the nation which can even help any remote villager to channel a doctor from the nearest Sampath Bank branch without coming to Colombo.
CEO e-Channelling, Sidath Chandrasena, told reporters that e-Channelling offers a service to consult doctors without standing in queues.
He said this system is user friendly and efficient. It will soon be extended to enable patients to make bookings and payments for healthcare services through other commercial banks, pharmacies, post offices and supermarkets.
e-Channelling is a revolutionary IT joint venture between Millennium IT and Ayojana Fund Management (Pvt) Ltd, with Suntel as the official telecommunication solutions provider, at an investment of Rs. 70-80 million.
A state policy on information and communication technology (ICT) convergence would be formulated by early next year, a senior minister promised.
"I am keen to support and promote continued private sector as well as foreign investment in ICT-based services,'' noted Posts, Telecommunications and IT Development Minister, Indika Gunawardena.
He told a workshop on ''ICT Convergence'' organised by the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) that the separate national IT policy and telecom policy, which has already been documented should be turned into a convergence policy.
"We have no time to lose as the world does not wait for us. That's why, in spite of election work I thought it is necessary to initiate the move towards convergence," he said.
The minister proposed four steps for the finalisation of the policy on ICT convergence and the formation of an action plan to formalise the implementation of these policies.
The steps include offering widest possible opportunities to debate and discuss the issues raised in the IT sector. This would include an appropriate public consultation period.
It would also entail legalising the policy on convergence while drawing up action plan time schedules for transition to the new regulatory environment, and finally implementing the action plan.
"It is our aim to increase ICT-based exports and make it one of the major foreign export earners for the country," Gunawardene said.
He also said that the low penetration of Internet use was a major concern to the authorities with regard to the spread of e-commerce and e-governance.
Deva Rodrigo, deputy chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, said Sri Lanka should take India as an example in the area of IT development.
He said that in 1990 Sri Lanka was far ahead of India in this sector but after a few years, India has overtaken this country due to the far-sighted policies adopted there in this field.
Rodrigo also said that the ICT legal framework was inadequate and a cause of concern, and needed to be looked into.
Prof. Sam Karunaratne of the Colombo University said, "as we are at the dawn of the digital technology we need to change the system of education on par with the changing world."
He added that global e-infrastructure would lay the foundation for every field including transport and medical science.
"As we enter the Information Technology era the Internet has become the largest machine built by mankind," he added.
The Central Bank has finally issued a licence to the National Mercantile Bank to trade in foreign currency with effect from November 13, 2001 after a lapse of several months.
The bank said the move came as the Supreme Court case filed by the bank against the authorities for non-issue of this licence came up for hearing on Thursday, September 13.
"We are thankful to the authorities for issuing the licence before this day," the statement said.
The licence to trade in foreign currency was not issued to the bank when it first applied for a banking licence. The bank then filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking an order to compel the authorities to grant the licence saying their decision was unfair and unjust.
The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has reported a slowdown in several performance indicators during the third quarter of 2001 as anticipated, but ended the first nine months of the year with significantly better results than the corresponding period of last year.
The bank said in a statement that external factors, as well as certain changes in domestic operating conditions had exerted adverse pressure on growth in turnover, profits, deposits, net interest income and exchange profit.
However, overall growth remained satisfactory in the context of the prevailing economic environment, due to the exceptional performance achieved in the first half of 2001.
According to Commercial Bank's recently released financial results for January - September 2001, gross turnover of the group grew by a healthy 55.7 percent over the same period in 2000 to Rs. 6.5 billion.
"These rates of growth are quite noteworthy by themselves," Commercial Bank' s Managing Director, A L Gooneratne commented. "However, in comparison with the rates achieved in the first six months of the year, the cumulative growth for the nine months under review was lower."
The Commercial Bank has reported growth in net advances, from a rate of 12.0 percent in the first half of the year, to 14.6 percent by the end of the third quarter.
Fitch Rating Ltd (FRL) has assigned SL AA (pronounced 'SL double A') credit rating for the proposed Rs. 400 mln unsubordinated, unsecured, redeemable debenture issue of Aitken Spence & Co Ltd.
SL AA rating denotes a very low expectation of credit risk. It indicates very strong capacity for timely payment of financial commitments. This capacity is not significantly vulnerable to foreseeable events.
The Aitken Spence Group is one of Sri Lanka's largest conglomerates. The core business segments of the group are tourism, cargo logistics, power generation, manufacturing and services.
By Lalith Senaweera Director, (Systems Certification), of the SLSI
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) since it began operations in 1947 has published more than 13,000 international standards related to various subject areas. Out of these standards, the ISO 9000 family has become the widely accepted series all over the world for quality management requirements in business-to-business dealings. Hence public and private sector organisations around the globe use these standards as a model to develop quality management systems within their organisations. This process not only helps organisations to have a sound quality management system within their organisations but also to obtain third party certification. According to the latest ISO survey results, more than 350,000 organisations around the globe have been certified against the applicable model of the ISO 9000 standards.
In the 1987 and 1994 versions the three certification standards were ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003. Without going into detailed definitions of the three, the first of these was for companies who designed their own products or services, the second was for companies who did everything except design and the third was for those whose products or services could be verified by inspections and tests only. However, many users complained that the 1994 version was cumbersome, manufacturing-based and not systematic. With this feedback in mind, the ISO technical committee developed a process model to describe general requirements of a quality management system as linked processes. This process model is identified as the ISO 9000: 2000 version.
The ISO 9000: 2000 series consists of:
* ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary
* ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems - Requirements
* ISO 9004 Quality Management Systems - Guidelines for performance improvements.
Therefore, the revised ISO 9000 family will only consist of three core standards as detailed above. The ISO 9001: 2000 and ISO 9004: 2000 standards have been specifically designed to be compatible with one another. Although each standard may be used independently, the overall benefits to organisations may be more extensive if the two standards are fully implemented together. For easy reference, ISO 9004: 2000 includes the requirements from ISO 9001:2000, which is a significant change from the 1994 version.
The revised ISO 9000:2000 series is based on eight quality management principles. These principles can be used by the senior management of organisations as a framework to guide their organisations toward improved performance. The descriptions of these eight quality management principles are given in ISO 9004: 2000.
ISO 9001:2000 is used for certification purposes and it defines the minimum requirements needed to achieve customer satisfaction. Although ISO 9004:2000 may not be used for certification, it is recommended that organisations which are interested to move beyond the basic requirements of ISO 9001:2000 should use ISO 9004:2000 as a guide in their pursuit of a more robust quality management system.
It should also be noted that ISO 9004:2000 should not be used as a guidance document for compliance to ISO 9001:2000.
Process Approach
ISO 9001:2000 ensures the process approach by breaking down organisation activities into five blocks as detailed below:
* Quality Management System
* Management Responsibility
* Resource Management
* Product Realisation
* Measurement, Analysis and Improvement.
This approach will help the organisations to change over from functional management thinking to process management thinking to ensure that all processes of the organisations are properly linked. The necessity for organisations to structure their business as a connected series of events is crucial, and the use of the above five factors need to be considered when moving toward process management.
Documentation Requirements
The new standard requires organisations to be mature in their approach to documented procedures. ISO 9001:2000 is truly results oriented. ISO 9001:2000 requires only six documented procedures. But this does not mean that organisations will be able to forgo documentation or its control. In the standard more responsibility is placed on the organisation to decide which documents it will need to ensure the effective planning, operation and control of its processes. The documentation system must also include documented statements of a quality policy, quality objectives, a quality manual, documented procedures and records as required by the standard.
The approach to the creation of a quality manual may become more practical with the issue of ISO 9001:2000 which specifically states that system documentation does not have to be structured to fit the format of the standard. Since most organisations will continue to adopt their old manual or model borrowed from elsewhere, the current practice is likely to be prevalent for the foreseeable future.
Though ISO 9001:2000 requires the organisations to have a documented Quality Management System (QMS), it does not require you to have a system of documents. ISO has written the new standard in the hope that it will help organisations to add value to the way they operate.
Ceylinco Shriram Capital Management Services Co (Pvt) Ltd in association with Seylan Bank launched Sri Lanka's first co-branded international credit card late last month.
A company statement said the Seylan – Ceylinco Shriram Visa International credit card is offered exclusively to customers of Ceylinco Shriram on preferred terms.
Ceylinco Shriram is a pioneering investment management company launched in 1996 as a joint venture between Ceylinco Consolidated and the Shriram group in India.
"The credit card is supported by the extensive merchant network developed by Seylan Bank and offers the entire range of benefits attached to Visa International credit cards issued by the bank," the statement said.
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