Ceramics sales to improve with new facility

Sales from Sri Lanka to US buyers such as Macys, Crate & Barrel, Linens & Things, Ten Strawberry Street and World Kitchen International show the potential for the Sri Lanka ceramics industry if, and only if, it can meet the growing competition head to head technologically as well as in product quality, according to a top aid expert on sustainable development.

Rebecca W. Cohn, USAID/ Sri Lanka Mission Director addressing the gathering at the opening ceremony of the Centre of Technical Excellence in Ceramics (CENTEC) this week said that this initiative will improve the quality of products, the efficiency of production, and benefit the industry and the national economy, while helping to create new technologies that will save money, and build talent in the ceramics research community.

The CENTEC is supported by The Competitiveness Programme, a project funded by the USAID. “This centre will play a critical role in helping Sri Lankan ceramics firms compete in the global marketplace through strengthened testing and research –what would commonly be called research and development (R and D),” Cohn said.

She said that for the last 50 years, the quality of craftsmanship of Sri Lankan ceramics has been recognised by experts as world class and the ceramics industry has proven that Sri Lanka has the ability to export manufactured goods as well as Sri Lanka’s traditional agricultural products, but market competition in the ceramics sector increases every day, and buyers increasingly demand value as well as quality. “Rising energy costs and increased competition from new players such as China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and long time market leaders such as Japan, England, Italy and Spain makes it imperative that the Sri Lanka ceramics industry discover and invest in more efficient methods of production,” she pointed out.

She said that sound R & D enables an industry to stay competitive—it boosts sales, increases profitability, opens new markets—both domestic and overseas; attracts the best employees, attracts external finance, reduce costs, and improve product quality.
She explained that the high cost of energy is a constraint for the ceramics industry and the industry can improve its consistency of raw materials and glazings, which would allow them to use their kilns for single run firings instead of multiple runs, saving considerable energy.

“This can be accomplished if they get the compound performance parameters correct, which requires state of the art laboratory facilities. A high quality lab is economically feasible if the industry shares the expense of a single lab rather than building individual labs,” she said, adding that CENTEC will enable the firms to do that testing in Sri Lanka as well as other testing.