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Re-inventing the role of the co-op.

It will be held on March 15-22 at the Hotel Renuka, Colombo. Participants include SANASA President, P.A. Kiriwandeniya, Professor S. Thilakarathne, Professor of Economics and Central Bank Governor A. S. Jayawardena. The event is open to non-members.

The theme of the workshop is the need for co-operatives to re-invent their role in the modern world, finding an appropriate balance between competitive pressures and serving its members. The event is sponsored by SANASA and the International Co-operative Alliance, an international non-governmental organisation which represents co-operatives world-wide.

SANASA, whose members come from 8,226 primary societies, gets technical and financial support from international NGO partners. It has a broad range of educational programmes under the SANASA Federation which consists of SANASA Development Bank, All Lanka Mutual Assurance Organisation, SANASA Producer and Consumer Alliance, SAN-ASA Engineering and Development Company and SANASA Communications.

Through its education, training and research wing, SANASA Education Campus, the organisation transfers knowledge and shares experiences based on its expertise as an institution dealing with issues relating to micro finance. It organised two conferences in November 2001 and January 2002, attended by representatives from co-operatives in India, Iran, Nepal, Canada and Indonesia.

ETF goes for 5S

Six hundred employees took part in a clean-up day held on Saturday, February 23, sacrificing off-time in a united effort to clean up their offices in order to increase efficiency, an ETF statement said.

The clean-up campaign precedes the next stage of the 5S programme which will involve organising the office to ensure there is a "place for everything".

Employee trade unions such as the Jathika Sewaka Sangamaya and Nidhahas Sewaka Sangamaya co-operated to make the clean-up project a reality.

The ETF was established in 1981 and has offices in Galle, Kalutara, Gampaha, Kurunegala and Hatton.

Expat wins Emirates holiday prize

Mrs. Kim Radzak, the American wife of Wolfgang Radzak, Project Manager for the Noell Company at the Kukule Ganga hydro power project, has won four Emirates return tickets from Colombo to Dubai and a five-night holiday at Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa for four.

"It was a pleasant surprise. I am looking forward to visiting Dubai, especially for the shopping," Radzak said.

The in-flight competition was also meant to popularise the Emirates Holidays value-for-money packages that is valid from March 1 to 31.

Lokuge blasts SriLankan Airlines

"In fact some SriLankan Airlines flights fly between Japan and the Maldives with Colombo being only the final destination. This has put Sri Lanka in a disadvantageous position in the promotion of its tourist industry," he told reporters last week.

The crisis facing Sri Lankan tourism arising out of the Colombo airport attacks and the US problem could have been reduced to a great extent if the national carrier had cooperated with other sections of the industry to revive tourism, he said.

Lokuge said the government has sought the advice of the Attorney General's Department in regard to the agreement with Emirates which has a 40 percent stake in the company.

The minister revealed that the absence of SriLankan Airlines offices in lucrative markets like Rome and Germany had also adversely affected the industry.

Sri Lanka needs to have direct flights to European destinations, he said. German tourists coming here are compelled to stop over in Dubai and the Maldives, he said, adding that Japanese tourists had a similar problem.

Minister's allegations refuted

Other carriers were free to operate to Colombo but many were not doing so because the market was not big enough to make such flights commercially viable, he said. The belief that having an "open skies" policy would automatically boost the tourism and the domestic airline industries was incorrect, he said.

Foreign airlines complained that there was not enough traffic throughout the year to make flights to Sri Lanka viable, he said. 

Also, aviation fuel prices here were much higher than elsewhere, he added. SriLankan Airlines spends $4-5 million a year on promoting Sri Lanka as a tourist destination, he said.

SriLankan Airlines was compelled to pull out of many destinations, including Germany, after it lost half its fleet in last year's terrorist attack on the Katunayake international airport, Jeyaseelan said. "We pulled out of destinations where losses were high and where other carriers were operating," he said, adding that the airline still had its country manager in Germany.

SriLankan Airlines maintained flights to Zurich because it was the only European country where Sri Lankans do not need transit visas, he said. 

Asked about complaints from foreign airlines that ground handling charges at Katunayake were too expensive because of the monopoly given to SriLankan Airlines, Jeyaseelan said the charges were "quite competitive" and "definitely cheaper than in India." He added: "It is not a major reason for other airlines not to come here. Passenger traffic is the main factor airlines look at." SriLankan Airlines was faced with the dilemma of being expected to operate to many destinations as the national carrier while at the same time being expected not to make losses at the end of the year, he said. "We operate as a commercial entity but keep in mind the national interest," he said.