The Embassy of Sri Lanka in Vietnam, in close coordination and collaboration with the Industrial Development Board (IDB), organised a “Sri Lankan Fair” to promote, project and profile the products of SME entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka to the vast middle-income market consisting of a 100 million population of Vietnam.
The two-day Sri Lankan Fair at the Chancery of the Embassy of Sri Lanka was attended by a large number of Vietnamese nationals, foreign nationals based in Hanoi, senior government and corporate personalities, media and of course the Diplomatic Corps consisting of a number of Ambassadors based in Hanoi, among others.
SME companies ranging from wooden and ornamental products, traditional Sri Lankan masks and paintings, batik and handmade garments, decorative household items, hand-made silver jewellry and gemstones, soft toys, exclusive wooden carvings, herbal tea and spices and brassware participated.
The event was enriched by serving and selling authentic and traditional Sri Lankan food.
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Vietnam, Prof. A. Saj U. Mendis said that in both developed and developing nations, the SME sector contributes approximately 50% of the GDP and employs over 60% of the working population.
He said that the primary economic pivot of any given nation was to intensely focus on fostering, nurturing and facilitating the SMEs, thus enabling them to advance to become mid-sized companies to large companies to national corporate and to regional players.
Minister Commercial of the Embassy, Kishani Wickramasinghe, played a pivotal and instrumental role in organising the entire Sri Lankan Fair.
Arrangements were made for over 15 Sri Lankan SME entrepreneurs who visited Hanoi to visit and interact with Bat Trang ceramic pottery village, wood craft village and Vietnam Association of Gemstones to forge long-term business and commercial relations, thus enabling the export the Sri Lankan products to Vietnam. The Embassy organised a number of B2B meetings for the Sri Lankan entrepreneurs/SMEs to promote their respective commercial entities.
Most of the SME entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka initiated and reached upon commercial arrangements with Vietnamese counterpart companies.
