EDB backs Sri Lanka’s participation at SIAL Paris 2024
The Morning: The Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) in collaboration with the Embassy of Sri Lanka in France, successfully organised Sri Lanka’s participation at SIAL Paris 2024 – one of the world’s leading food and beverage exhibitions held once every two years in France.
The event took place from 19-23 October 2024. Local food and beverage businesses representing a wide range of sectors such as coconut-based products, confectionery items, cashew and savoury products, frozen and processed food, and value-added innovative products made use of this opportunity to enhance their business opportunities.
This year, the EDB enabled the participation of 19 companies via the Sri Lanka country pavilion in two spacious halls.
The participant firms were: Alpex Ceylon Tea (Pvt) Ltd., Adamexpo, Adamjee Lukmanjee Exports (Pvt) Ltd., Consolidated Business Systems Limited, Planto Ceylon (Pvt) Ltd., Samagi Spice Exports (Pvt) Ltd., Bespice (Pvt) Ltd., Rancrisp Marketing (Pvt) Ltd., Expo Commodities (Pvt) Ltd., Maliban Biscuit Manufactories (Pvt) Ltd., Tropikal Life International (Pvt) Ltd., Global Trading Services, Unistar International (Pvt) Ltd., Ceylon Plant Food (Pvt) Ltd., Healing Life International (Pvt) Ltd., Enrich Tea and Food Exports (Pvt) Ltd., New Lanka Cinnamon (Pvt) Ltd. and HJS Condiments Ltd.
A special feature of Sri Lanka’s presence at the 2024 edition of the premier French food and beverage trade fair was the EDB, with the financial assistance of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), organised a dedicated promotional area for EU PGI-certified Ceylon Cinnamon products of 10 business entities to enable their entry to the EU market.
Samagi Spice Exports (Pvt) Ltd., Pasanka (Pvt) Ltd., Jaith Ceylon Cinnamon (Pvt) Ltd., Kurunegala Plantations Ltd, Saviru Spices and Naturals (Pvt) Ltd., Cenica Exports (Pvt) Ltd., Uruwala Estate, Aikya Agro (Pvt) Ltd., K. P. Somadasa and Company (Pvt) Ltd. and SDS Spice were the beneficiaries of this initiative.
The Sri Lankan Embassy in France, led by the Sri Lanka Ambassador Manisha Gunasekera, provided comprehensive support to the EDB in organising Sri Lanka’s participation at the event.
The Embassy connected several leading buyers with the Sri Lanka companies, including the Carrefour supermarket chain in France. The Ambassador visited the Sri Lanka pavilions and had discussions with the Sri Lankan companies during the trade fair.
Prior to the exhibition, the EDB with the assistance of the Sri Lanka Embassy shared the contact details of potential importers for all product sectors displayed by Sri Lankan companies, enabling the participant firms to arrange business meetings.
Further, the Sri Lanka mission in France invited all potential importers to visit the Sri Lanka pavilion and arranged B2B meetings with potential importers at the pavilion. The embassy also organised a successful social media campaign in French and English languages for a period of more than five weeks.
To give more visibility and to attract potential commercial partners to the Sri Lanka pavilion in two locations, the EDB organised a webinar series before the exhibition for the individual participants/companies highlighted by SIAL Paris.
In addition, at the request of the EDB, a promotional video was produced by the Embassy featuring well-known French Chef Dominique Pambrun promoting PGI-certified Ceylon Cinnamon in the French market.
OSL take:
While Sri Lanka’s exports industry is on a steady growth path, local export authorities are focused on further strengthening and expanding in the industry through the expansion of trade ties enjoyed by Sri Lanka with many foreign countries as well as carry out more promotional campaigns in foreign markets. These activities have resulted in Sri Lankan exporters and their products being publicized in foreign markets, both old and new, with the aim of further expanding market opportunities for Sri Lankan exports. The increasing demand for local exports in foreign markets and the steady expansion in the overall exports industry have created many lucrative business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s exports industry. The growth and profits recorded by Sri Lankan businesses in the exports industry and the increasing business potential are all indicative of the lucrative nature of the business/investment opportunities in the local industry. Foreign businesses/investors could therefore explore the expanding business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s exports industry while also looking at forming partnerships or joint ventures with local businesses in the industry in order to further expand operations locally and internationally. Foreign businesses could also look at setting up manufacturing bases in Sri Lanka to engage with other foreign countries using the preferential treatment enjoyed by Sri Lanka with many foreign countries, especially in the region.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20250103/Z_2 |