|
||||
|
"Decide between tourism and aviation hub" Sri Lanka should
decide whether it should promote the country as a touristdestination
or as an aviation hub, as it would be difficult to achieve both,
said G.T. Jayaseelan, Head of Commercial, SriLankan Airlines last
week. Speaking at
the fifth P.B. Karandawala Memorial lecture organized by the Chartered
Institute of Logistics and Transport in Sri Lanka on the topic 'Developing
Sri Lanka as an Aviation Hub and Prospects, Problems and the Role
of the National Airline', he said the hub concept has been a hot
issue in the recent past in Sri Lankan aviation circles. The main
job for the aviation industry is to support the economy and tourism
and above all allow market forces to determine everything. He said that
a lot of work must be completed to make Colombo the hub as the airport
where the hub is located should have major infrastructure improvements,
open a number of departure and arrival gates, effect major improvements
in international and internal flights, offer more parking facilities
and airport parking areas too. Jayaseelan
said that the essential conditions for Colombo to be a hub was geographical
location and attractiveness. It should really try the southern Indian
market because what the country has in the east and south west of
Sri Lanka was the Indian ocean and the Indian harbour is in close
proximity. India should be made Sri Lanka's core market. "Markets
of India and China were improving rapidly and so we need to improve
the geographical attraction. Sri Lankan Airlines is the biggest
airline to India and it could bevery attractive provided we have
the required frequency," he said. Another matter
was the airport tax. In Sri Lanka it could not be paid to the airline
but had to be attached to the ticket whereas many governments have
permitted the airlines to collect the airport tax and they have
three or four counters. The transport service in Sri Lanka has not
improved and when SriLankan Airlines approached the Sri Lanka Railway
for their staff to be brought from Colombo to Katunayake, the Railway
had said it would take two hours. For Sri Lanka to be used as a
hub there should be attractive parking and ground handling which
would entice more airlines to use Sri Lanka as a hub. He said that the transit area of the airport has been the same as for the last 15 years and terminal capacity was limited. Terminal capacity has to beexpanded by four times more. (QP) New Echo cardiography machine in southern hospital An Echo Cardiography
machine has been installed at the Ruhuna Hospital in the south by
Nawaloka Hospitals Ltd, Nawaloka said in a statement. An Exercise
ECG machine has also been installed in the same hospital. The machines
were purchased from Precision Tech and installed at a cost of Rs.
6 million by Ruhunu Hospitals. The Ruhuna Hospital management was taken over by Nawaloka Hospitals in 1997 and it is now a well-established private hospital equipped with all the latest facilities. It is the only hospital in the south to have a fully-equipped modern Intensive Care Unit. Nokia interested in Sri Lankan investment Nokia, the world's
leading mobile phone manufacturer, has expressed an interest in
investing in Sri Lanka following the recent liberalization of Sri
Lanka's telecom industry, the Board of Investment (BOI) said. Sanjay Bhasin,
Director Nokia Asia Pacific Region Programme, visiting Colombo last
week met BOI Deputy Director- General, Santhusth Jayasuriya who
invited Nokia to set up a manufacturing plant in Sri Lanka. Bhasin said
Nokia was interested in investing in the telecom infrastructure
of Sri Lanka. He said he was currently looking for an experienced
partner to begin operations in the country. Jayasuriya, the BOI
said, explained the finer points of the Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement
and how 'Nokia' could benefit from manufacturing and exporting from
Sri Lanka Nokia, originally from Finland, has manufacturing plants in eight countries and is a $ 30 billion company. Nokia has seen an annual growth of 40-50% and manufactures 140 million mobile phones per year. Water Mart Pvt. Ltd recently received the ISO 9002 Certification from the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI), the first local water supply company to do so. This certification
is presented for overall well maintenance, hygiene, employee welfare,
surrounding environmental conditions of the plant, etc. "Supplying
purified water is a easy project to do but, not an easy one to do
well,” says Nihal de Silva, Managing Director, Water Mart Pvt.
Ltd. With society becoming more aware of the positive effects of clean drinking water and their insistence on it, water suppliers have quite a task to provide good drinking water. The standard procedure that raw water is put under comprises of a series of filtration steps through the gradual reduction of pore sizes, which moves straight into the two sterilization processes (UV and Ozonation) and finally through a treated chamber straight into the filling plant where it is bottled, sealed and labeled. If the main
source of water is clean, then there is less need to treat and purify
the water. "For instance the natural spring from where our
water is supplied is so clean that it can be bottled straight off,
without any filtration and multiple sterilization process. “Nevertheless
we stick to this procedure as a 'safety net', leaving no room for
error,” de Silva said. Water Mart Pvt. Ltd., is also the first company of its kind in the water industry to have an in-house laboratory capable of carrying out microbiological analysis. The six-year-old company has already branched out into the export market - for the past three years - covering the Maldives with plans to tackle the Middle East. As bottled water is fast becoming a universal trend, it's important that certain standards be made mandatory, says de Silva. (MDS) Phone Co wins Dialog awards six years in a row The Phone Co,
which began operations in 1997, this year continued to succeed at
the Dialog GSM awards - winning for the sixth successive year. Outgoing Managing
Director, M.J. (Chuti) Mansoor, reflecting on the success said it
was a result of the company's attitude towards its customers. "We believe that to be a leader in this field one must strive to be "The Best Dealer with the Best Deal," he emphasized. Other factors he counts as being important for their continued success, are ranges of phones they offer customers around 20 different models, ensuring their products are of the highest quality. The company
has won Dialog awards since 1998. Taking over the reins as Managing Director of the company is Sajjad Mawzoon, himself a driving force behind the success of the company. Also moving up the corporate ladder is O.H. Sulaiman, who assumes office as the Chairman. The Phone Co. has a staff of 50 and a network of over 200 partners involved directly and indirectly in their operations. Three Coins cans its dark horse Specialty brewer
Three Coins has canned its trendy Irish Dark, popularly referred
to as 3CID, providing beer aficionados with another stylishly packaged
choice of craft beer. The new 330-ml cans of 3CID in distinctive
black, green and silver livery, hit the shelves last Tuesday and
are also available in handy six packs, the company said. The Irish
Dark, which takes its name from its reddish appearance, is a beer-style
popular among people of Anglo-Irish stock. It is a style that is
smooth and tasty, without the coarseness associated with other locally
brewed beers that are high in alcohol. In fact, the Irish Dark has got a punch so well disguised that the brewer had dubbed it a "dark horse". |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
