Cabinet nod to restructure Lanka Sathosa

The Cabinet nod has been granted to restructure the country’s largest State-owned retail network Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) also known as Lanka Sathosa.
Minister of Trade, Commerce and Food Security Nalin Fernando on Monday sought the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers to appoint an operational monitoring committee to carry out the activities related to the restructuring of CWE and to implement the proposed restructuring process.

“Taking into account the fact that the desired objectives of establishing the Cooperative Wholesale 
Establishment have not been achieved and the establishment is not contributing effectively to the economy of the country, the need to restructure Sathosa has been recognised,” the Government Information Department reasoned.

The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) also recently outlined the need to prepare a business model suitable for Lanka Sathosa in order to make it profitable.
According to COPE, Lanka Sathosa incurred a loss of around Rs.600 million in 2022.