Chairman's Message

Home   >   About Us   >   Chairman's Message

Mr. Channa Gunawardena Chairman, SLFFA

(Speech from the 42nd AGM of Sri Lanka Logistics & Freight Forwarders Association held on 25th September 2023)

The Chief Guest Retired Major General G. A. Chandrasiri , the Chairman of Airport and Aviation Services Limited, Guest of Honour Dr Kingsly Bernard, Chairman of EDB , Members of the Head Table, Distinguished invitees, fellow members , Ladies and Gentlemen.

I consider this as an honour bestowed upon me to spearhead the apex body of freight forwarding in Sri Lanka as it’s 21st Chairman. Firstly, I take this opportunity to congratulate outgoing Chairman Dinesh Sri Chandrasekara and the executive committee on completion of an excellent tenure marked with many accomplishments. Thank you, Dinesh for all the guidance and the members of the advisory council for invaluable support extended in many ways.

Resonating the resilience nature of Sri Lankans, we the logisticians too are slowly but surely recovering from the economic crisis and its negative impact on our industry. Whilst acknowledging the fact that we are not “out of the woods yet”, believe there is no better time to re-energize some of the very important logistics industry related initiatives we lobbied for prior to the onset of the Pandemic. These will be SLFFA’s immediate focus and I earnestly look forward to the support of all progressive minded stake holders in our quest.

Prior to the onset of the pandemic, there were many a dialogue aimed towards accelerated structural reforms of the logistics industry which will help the country achieving its aspiration of becoming the logistics hub in South Asia region. SLFFA has actively taken part in many if not all of those initiatives and I believe we must now revisit those and expedite the process of implementation. We firmly believe in collaboration with other stake holders of the industry in doing so. This is an immediate and high priority for us.

Dr Bernard, Sir as you are aware The Logistics strategy as a part of NES is one such initiative which highlighted the need for a cohesive regulatory framework to fully optimise the potential of logistics industry in the country. Due to various reasons, this strategy was restricted to a mere document of 60 plus pages.  SLFFA will play an active role in pursuing necessary factions to ensure this document is given due focus at all related discussions. We look forward to the support of other trade associations in this endeavour. The actioning of this all-important strategy heavily dependent on the support it requires from the Ministries and State institutes identified as leading and supporting implementing partners. We look forward to the support and leadership of EDB in this regard.

Sri Lanka’s strategic location and our ability to be the logistics Hub for the South Asian region is a topic spoken repeatedly over many years. SLFFA has been involved in many a dialogue and have always emphasized the importance of having the required infrastructure, both physical and systems in achieving the Hub status. We acknowledge progress even though it’s limited, over the years and emphasize the importance of accelerating these.

On the ocean freight side, we strongly feel the necessity to study the tariffs involved in Multi Country Consolidation which is an integral part of a location or a Port achieving a Hub status. A Tariff needs to meet its primary objective of generating revenue but in the context of Multi-Country Consolidation, it must not be deterrent in attracting new players to the business. SLFFA intends to engage The Sri Lanka Ports Authority in a constructive dialog and we look forward to the support of other associations with similar interests.

Often when we speak of the Hub concept, it’s more to do with Ocean related services whereas seldom we speak of the potential of our airports. Even though we are far from a Dubai, Singapore or Hong Kong due to less air freight capacity, one cannot write off the geographical advantage we possess. In order to fully harness this potential, SLFFA recognised the importance of having the right infrastructure in place at Colombo Airport and we formulated a comprehensive document few years back which we have presented to AASL. This document is a result of a detailed study carried out by subject experts of our association and was handed over at the time when planning of the Airport expansion project. Sir, we are confident that this proposal will be given due attention when the project restart again, hopefully in coming months. This is high priority for us and we would be more than happy to take part in discussions on this subject.

Another priority area is digital transformation and our commitment towards various initiatives. We will continue to actively take part in these constructive dialogues and would like to highlight importance of a unified approach by all relevant lead institutes, ensuring that the implementation process is not delayed further. SLFFA is the leading industry body who’s involved in both Ocean and Air freight and I’m sure our input will be vital in this area.

We will continue to play a pivotal role in educating our next generation of logisticians through our training academy AITT and our objective in coming years to increase the awareness of the value of the courses conducted by AITT amongst our fraternity and thereby ensuring we have a larger talent pool.

AITT offers 3 highly effective and practical courses to three different segments. UNESCAP endorsed foundation course for the students and new comers, The DGMS approved certification course for the executives who are already employed and finally the FIATA international Diploma which is equal to a Bachelor’s Degree. Importantly, we now conduct the Dangerous Goods Regulations Training programme also under AITT. So now you don’t have to look anywhere else to train your staff.

As we all know, the importance of the Logistician came to the fore during the Pandemic. When everyone opted to hide in safety, it’s us who came to the front to set things in motion. We at SLFFA realised the importance of recognising the efforts of these “brave individuals” who are employed across different fields including Freight forwarding. Henceforth, the birth of National Logistics Awards (the NLA) which was an idea of our past Chairman Roshan Silva and our newly elected Treasure Shavindra Dias. The first NLA was a resounding success and we plan to hold the next awards ceremony during the course of 2024. This time around we are intending introduce additional categories with the aim of increasing participation.

In conclusion, I would like to highlight the importance of your continuous engagement with us at the Executive committee and would like to thank all of you who have actively taken part in many a dialogue which we had over the last couple of years on many important topics. I look forward for same during the years ahead.

Thank you