Financial Times

Construction Industry Buyers-Sellers meet at BMICH
By Quintus Perera
A major challenge in the construction industry is the shortage of skilled labour as most of the skilled workerse have gone to Middle-East for better employment, Surath Wickramasinghe, President, Chamber of Construction Industry Sri Lanka (CCISL) told reporters last week at a briefing to announce this week’s Buyers-Sellers Meet and Small and Medium Enterprises Fair at the BMICH.

He said the country is facing a huge shortage of basic construction materials such as cement, steel, sand, etc. in addition to the shortage of skilled labour. In addition to that most of the domestic contractors are not eligible to bid for multinational development bank funded projects due to inadequate pre-qualifications.

The Meet and Fair is being held to enhance the competitiveness of the construction industry and to meet the increasing demand of the reconstruction and rehabilitation of tsunami activities and other development endeavours. Wickramasinghe said that earlier everything was done by one person but today specialization masonry, carpentry, plumbing and other disciplines are handled by different persons. Therefore skilled training in different disciplines is a must.

Dakshitha Thalgodapitiya, CEO, CCISL said more than 75 percent in the construction industry consisted of SMEs and in the Tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation work 85 percent would be construction work. In the construction industry they have to think of the local industry and to increase its efficiency the SME sector must have to be developed.

He said that large enterprises to achieve competitiveness must outsource from the contractors of SME sector. The SME sector should form a consortium among themselves as well as establish partnerships with large enterprises to enhance capacities to undertake multinational development bank funded projects.

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