Sri Lanka should capitalize on the current geopolitics and covert Sri Lanka as an international logistic hub said Group CEO Hemas Holdings PLC Kasthuri Wilson.
She said that the Ukraine-Russian war, Chinese economic slowdown due to C-19 and other similar geo-political situations in the world should be looked at and Sri Lanka can play a major role in the global logistics area. Sri Lanka’s geographical location too would be a major advantage for that. She said that the Colombo Ports’ efficacy has to be further increased and more infrastructure facilities should be added while planned expansions should be expedited soon.
“We see the potential in Sri Lanka for logistics and this is the reason Hemas decided to remain in the business.”
She said that they found that the leisure sector needed more manpower and had other logistical issues and opted out of the business. “We will concentrate more on pharmaceutical and health care segments. We were planning to add another hospital but have put this idea on hold for at least another two years due to high construction costs and cost of capital.”
Hemas is also looking at producing more niche products for the Sri Lankan export basket and these will include pharmaceutical products after two years.
Commenting on their Bangladesh operation which they launched four years ago she said that they are very successful and this business maintained its market position with stable volume growth. “We are hoping to launch two new products to this market.”
She also explained in detail the CSR initiative Hemas was involved in and said they would continue to invest more in these initiatives. She disclosed that over 100,000 students drop out of the main education system each year and this is a major concern they are having several projects to overcome this issue. “Sadly these numbers were around 25,000 a few years ago and figures are increasing at an alarming rate.”
Atlas, Head of Corporate Affairs Nadeeka Jayasinghe said that to overcome this they also conducted several zoom classes during the pandemic and are engaged in slimmer initiatives. Shiromi Masakorale also highlighted some of the key initiatives done by Hemas Outreach Foundation on educating and empowering underprivileged children which primarily focuses on early childhood care.
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Affordability is not the only cause of nonuse of personal care items
The world is losing over 3 trillion female workforce due to the nonuse of personal care items used by women and in Sri Lanka too out of 4.5 million menstruating women only 30% wear sanitary napkins regularly.
“We thought this was an issue of affordability and launched a single sanitary napkin pack for Rs. 99 but now we found out that it’s not the affordability but other issues. These include ignorance, myths, disposal issues and uncalled for concerns,” said Lead Corporate Affairs, Hemas, Janakie Karunatratne.
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