Export decline reasons ‘many and varied’: EDB Chief

5 November 2015 06:30 pm Views - 969

The country’s exports have come down due to a multitude of reason and not due to a shortcoming of the Exports Development Board, the agency’s new Chairperson said.

“Exports are coming down due to various reasons, chiefly because the global markets have come down-it’s not EDB alone,” Indira Malwatte said at her first appearance after taking up office.

She said that she had stressed on President Maithripala Sirisena the need for a collaborative, multi sectoral approach in the planned development efforts to lift Sri Lanka’s exports.

“I urged the President to give prominence to exports and called for his help to enlist all the sectoral ministries and institutions to meet national targets,” she added.

Malwatte said she left her EDB post of instructing exporters 10 years ago to start a strawberry export business to UK’s Marks & Spencer, which showed her the problems faced by exporters, including the government bureaucracy.

“Exposure in the private sector gave me the needed understanding to come back to lead the EDB. I am here to bring back the glory of EDB and our exports. I am pleased that I have a good, motivated team here,” she said.

According to the EDB mandate, the EDB Chairman is supported by sixteen members, including the Secretaries of Ministries represented in the Export Development Council of Ministers (EDCM).

“The EDCM was a beautiful mechanism where ministers from sectors that directly linked to exports sat and formulated targets themselves” Malwatte said.