SLFFA CargoServices Ltd(SLFFACSL) organized a full day workshop for their clients on 13th May at JAIC Hilton hotel under the theme ‘Driving business growth through competitive supply chains’. The workshop was attended by their clients, freight forwarders and representatives from government authorities. The Chairman of SLFFACargo Services Ltd, Mr.DirenHallock in his welcome address spelt out the objectives of the workshop and stated that this is a landmark occasion for SLFFACSL as they brought all stakeholders under one roof for the first time to understand the current challenges and as a group how everyone should collaborate seamlessly to solve issues in their trade.
Honorable Minister of Finance,Mr Ravi Karunanayakein his address to theaudience assured that the government is committed to bring in all authorities engaged in import and export clearance to operate within a single window to facilitate faster and seamless clearance of cargo. Honorable Minister further stressed that although he is supportive of regulatory reforms, he gave a stern warning to miscreants not to violate the system. He also commended SLFFACSL for organizing such a workshop by bringing all stakeholders together to challenge and resolve issues for the industry and make Sri Lanka a competitive place for cargo operations.
The workshop was facilitated by Ms Gayani de Alwis, Supply Chain Consultant. She started by giving an overall understanding on the big picture on how supply chain and logistics can contribute to business growth in an organization and the need to invest in such professionals to achieve business results. She was followed by a guest lecture by Mr Ahmed Ur Rahman of DHL Global Forwarding Lanka,who shared best practices in air cargo logistics and especially new techniques for ensuring integrity of packaging and the equipment used in ground handling. Both these talks were very engaging and were well received by the audience.
The key feature of the workshop was the moderated round table discussion consisting of Heads of leading Freight Forwarding Companies,representatives from top customers of SLFFACSL, namelyMr Adrian Basnayake MD of ABC Pharma, Mr Sean Van Dort, Head of Commercial and Logistics, MAS Active, Mr Senaka Pinto, Manager Imports, MAS Intimates, JanakaMunasinghe, Senior Manager Sri Lankan Worldwide Cargo Operations, Dr Neville Gunawardane, Consultant to Ministry of Finance and former Director General of Customs, which turned out to be quite illuminating for participants.
Some of the key takeout’s from the round table discussion were for SLFFACSL to take the lead to push for regulatory reforms, the need for end to end value stream mapping for all government authorities which are engaged in the clearance of cargo to eliminate repetitive non value adding activities, create awareness at ground handling level through focused programs, operationalisation of ‘single window’ concept, support to implement best practices in cargo handling.
SLFFACSL plans to organize similar focused programs catering to their clients in the future.
SLFFACS is a consortium of public unlisted companies comprising mostly of the leading freight forwarders in SriLanka and has been in existence for more than two decadessince 1994. The company core business is providing common user facilities for the freight forwarding and logistics industry in SriLanka. Towards this purpose it has been successfully operating an import aircargo terminal at BIA-Katunayake since 1994, providing valuable service to importers for import aircargo. More recently they have set up the trade portal to facilitate e-trading in the form of E-booking & E-Airwaybill transmission based on their tie up with Cargo Community Network, Singapore (CCN). Future plans involve the extension of their services to cater to the import Less than Container Load (LCL) sea cargo, where they plan to operate a state of the art facility ideally within the port to provide fast and safe handling which all importers are badly in need of.
Honorable Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake addressing the gathering
Round Table Discussion
Left to right
Gayani de Alwis, Supply chain Consultant(Moderator), DirenHallock, Chairman SLFFACSL, Mohan Mohanadas, MD – Dart Global logistics pvt Ltd, NemanthaHatharasinghe, MD- Scanwell Freight Express Colombo (Pvt) Ltd, Ahmed Ur Rahman, Head of Marketing & Sales- DHL Global Forwarding Lanka, Romesh David, President Transportation sector- JKH, Sean Van Dort, Head of Commercial & Logistics – MAS Active, Senaka Pinto, Manager Imports- MAS Intimates, Adrian Basnayake MD – ABC Pharma, Dr Neville Gunawardane, Consultant to Ministry of Finance, JanakaMunasinghe, Senior Manager Sri Lankan Worldwide Cargo Operations.