Financial Times

Weak R&D skills hinder industrialization effort - ADB
By Quintus Perera
Despite Sri Lanka's strong human development indicators, its human resources base in science and technology is weak, hindering the use of modern technology to accelerate industrialization and strengthen the economy, said John Cooney, Asian Development Bank Country Representative for Sri Lanka.

He was speaking at a ceremony to grant the international accreditation, ISO/IEC 17025, to the Solar PV, SHS and Lamp testing laboratory of the National Engineering Research and Development Centre (NERD).

This was granted by Dr Avdhesh Matur, Chief Executive Officer, Testing and Quality Certification Directorate (STQC) of India. Cooney said that to sustain higher rates of economic growth, the country needs to reorient its production structure towards higher value-added activities and increased productivity.

Sri Lanka has inadequate science and technology personnel training capacity. The performances of science and technology institutions had been affected by inadequate laboratory and workshop facilities, a decline in qualified professional staff, and a mismatch between outputs of science and technology institutions and industry requirements.

Science and technology educational institutes need considerable strengthening to enable them to increase the quantity and quality of science. In this regard, the ADB has proposed a project to support such institutions in seven selected universities and five research and development centres.

Cooney said there was no apparent linkage between the academia and R&D institutions and the private sector, except for organizations like the NERD Centre.

G. Hewagama, Secretary, Ministry of Economic Reform, Science and Technology said that strengthening of institutional infrastructure for quality through the establishment of a National Accreditation Board, and development of the national conformity assessment system was one of the main policy proposals included in the National Quality Policy.

This would be essential to assure the quality of goods and services both for domestic and export markets. Hewagama said that an Act to provide for the establishment of the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board for conformity assessment is now ready for enactment and has only to be cleared by the Attorney General.

The demand for quality necessitated strict compliance with technical regulations, standards and measures covering health safety and quality. He said that they were essential to enhance national performance and support national economic activities.

He said that conformity of assessment procedures in international trade required the development of National Conformity Assessment systems which are reliable, transparent and linked with worldwide systems on accreditation and certification.

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