Sri Lanka's big corporates lack export hunger - Hilmy

The head of international management consultancy firm, MTI Consulting, Hilmy Cader claims that one of the reasons why Sri Lanka does not perform well in its export industry is because the island’s big corporates lack hunger for exports. Addressing a forum  organized by the Exporters’ Association of Sri Lanka, Cader analyzing the top 40 CSE capitalized companies said that out of the top 40, only three companies have a significant dependence on International income whilst the others are not entirely dependent except for Carsons, Hayleys and Colombo Dockyard.

“The others are very comfortable with local income. With more companies coming into the fore, they will be more comfortable. The hunger for exports is not there. Our big corporates have no desire for exports. That is why we have a hugely fragment export industry where only seven companies go above 100 million dollars,” Cader pointed out.

Speaking further on the topic of strategizing for exports, he noted that although we keep talking of achieving Rs.20 billion exports by 2020, there hasn’t been any clear strategy formulated on how we are going to reach the 20 billion exports.
“From whom are we going to get this? Because in this competitive world, no one’s just going to wait there until you take 20 billion off them. Why should somebody come to us? Have we answered the question? No. But we make a lot of headlines, 10 billion here, and 5 billion there. But how are we going to do it? We haven’t addressed the ‘how’ part of it but we are very high on the talk,” he lamented.

Noting that though the country has a multitude of institutions involved in export promotion, he said the real question should be as to who is responsible for strategizing; enabling the environment and who is responsible to make sure you bring the right players in.
“So that’s the first question, we need to know who is responsible and someone’s neck has got to be on the line if you really want to make a change. Second, what’s our focus going to be? We have fewer than 10 billion in exports but we have seven sectors that cross 100 million dollars and only about 10 exporters who cross 100 million dollars. And today unless you are doing an ultra-specialized product you need to have the minimum economies of scale. There is no way you can compete in the global market,” Cader said adding that exporters needed  to start by looking at all the multinationals and how we can be part of their supply chain.
The Chief Executive Officer of MTI Consulting made the above comments at the event titled ‘Whither exports in the next five years’ held at the Hilton Colombo Residencies recently.

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