Spice and herbal exports to EU increase

Sri Lanka's spice and herbal product exports have grown steadily over the years, said Head of Mission, European Union (EU), David Daly at the 10th Annual General Meeting of the Spice Council last week. He said that the EU imports around 28,500 tonnes of spices from developing countries and added that imports from Sri Lanka is on the rise.

“Sri Lanka's spices have great demand in the EU. The country should focus on exporting more valued added products to enhance export revenue. Exporting to the EU is challenging.

Exporters should focus on quality products. The food and heath standard in the region is high,” Daly said. He said that despite all these challenges it will still be rewarding if exporters adhere to trade regulations of the EU and boost export of value added products to the region.

The EU is a major market for Sri Lankan spices. Exports to the region have grown 11 percent year-on-year. Export revenue from spices to the EU was US$ 236 million last year which was a 55 percent growth compared to the previous year.Spice Council, Chairman, Sarada de Silva said that the industry is optimistic of a better fourth quarter with improved weather and global market conditions. Spice exports last year grew by a round six percent.

Export revenue slumped early this year due to adverse weather conditions. Exports of cinnamon, pepper, cloves, essential oils and other spice products did well last year. De Silva said that the percentage of value addition has increased and the country exports organic essential oils, oleo resins, flavours of most spices and herbal products.

The Council called upon the government to accede to the Madrid and Lisbon agreements which will help Sri Lankan companies in branding and registering trademarks.

Country's capital market will rise

Sri Lanka's capital market will develop in the near future as the country is now stable, while investor confidence is growing, said Bank of Ceylon (BoC), Chairman Razik Zarook at the launch of the Rs. 4 billion long-term BoC debenture issue in Colombo last week.

Responding to a query on issues in Sri Lanka's capital market, liquidity and secondary market issues of debentures, he said that there is development in the capital market and new instruments and new investors are coming in and, therefore, intervention in the market is not necessary.

The BoC debenture issue which opens tomorrow and is one of the largest debenture issues of any commercial bank in the country.Senior Deputy General Manager, International, Treasury and Investment of BoC, P.A. Lionel said that according to market investigations the debenture will be oversubscribed by 200% and the bank expects over Rs.15 billion in subscriptions mainly from local institutional investors.

“We encourage individual subscribers too to invest but the main subscribers will be the corporates with excess liquidity,” he said.He said that this debenture issue will portray BoC's strength, increase its tier-two capital and help to fulfill the long-term financial needs of the bank and invest in long-term projects such as infrastructure development of the economy. Investors know our strength and we are the number one commercial bank in the country in all criteria, we have an over one trillion asset base and our two recent bond issues were also oversubscribed by eight times and six times, he said.

This unsecured, subordinated and redeemable debentures have maturity periods ranging from 5-10 years. The debentures have been rated AA (Lanka) by Fitch Ratings (Lanka) Ltd.This issue is an opportunity for the public to invest their money at minimum risk in the present volatile market. The Rs. 4 billion issue with an option to increase it to eight billion in the event of over-subscription, consists of nine debenture types of various fixed and floating coupon rates with tenors between 5-10 years.

This is an ideal investment option for long term investors concerned over interest rates. Another advantage of investing debentures is that they are exempt from withholding and corporate taxes, Lionel said.

Mapping Child Abuse in Sri Lanka

There is a high incidence of child sexual abuse and exploitation occurring in Sri Lanka. The current trend in the country shows that there is lack of parental care and awareness which has led to abuse among children. In majority of the cases, the perpetrator is a close family member or a person well known to the family. According to the Deputy Solicitor General, nearly 45% of the cases heard in the higher courts in the country were estimated to be related to child abuse pointing at a high incidence of the problem in the country. Therefore, it is the need of the hour that parents and family members are made aware of situations where a child would be unsafe. It is also essential that remedial measures are taken when high risk or vulnerable family situations are identified.

Godakumbura workshop with children and parents in Sri Lanka

In the backdrop of this situation, Kantha Shakthi (KS) has developed an intervention which seeks to protect children abused due to vulnerable conditions at home. The intervention aims at sensitising field officers, grassroots level administrators, Community Based Organizations and Public Health Midwives on identifying vulnerable families and taking measures to prevent child abuse in these families.

KS believes that field officers and Public Health Midwives working at the grassroots level, visiting families to carry out their day to day activities, is the best target group to raise awareness on how to identify high risk and vulnerable families where children are at the risk of being abused. The specific activity of the programme is to raise awareness among field officers and midwives attached to Local Government (LG) Institutions to identify vulnerable families and taking preventive action to protect children of such families from being abused. Although it is very difficult for local NGOs to carry out such intervention, KS has been successfully able to enter into this arena through this programme and has been well appreciated by the Local Government now who support and recognise KS as a potential organisation.

Previously, field officers attached to LG institutions presented practical issues that they faced while dealing with vulnerable families and children from high risk families. They were not aware of the action that was required to overcome this situation. After the training programme they were able to identify the relevant officer or institution that they should link with in order to solve these issues. For e.g. midwives attached to the office of MoH did not know that they could link with the Social Service Officer at the Divisional Secretariat to solve issues related to children.

With the help of the training programme, now there has been greater awareness among filed officers on how to identify vulnerable families and on actions to prevent child abuse. They are now aware of other government institutions to link up with to solve issues of children at high risk of being abused. As a result, KS also gets requests from Local Government Institutions from other areas to conduct similar programmes. 

My Caring Family is My First Right "SAAGN"

SAAGN Alliance led Regional Communication Campaign on "My Caring Family is My First Right" was launched on 1st June 2013 to raise awareness on Family as the first place where children can see their rights. SAAGN launched the campaign through an online petition on www.change.org on 1st June 2013 as its first initiative to launch the campaign. http://chn.ge/13pA6pp. The petition has been signed by more than 12,000 individuals all across the world.

In India, Don Bosco Ashalayam, Delhi organized a Letter writing and Drawing com-petition involving 150 children depicting their ideas, love and the role of the family, after which they also organized an interactive session with children along with distribu-tion of posters and bumper stickers in the local community. J.N. Bal Nikunj Samiti, Lakhimpur- Kheri, UP on the other hand organized a painting competition on the theme ‘Importance of family for children’ with 38 children. Open Learning Systems, Orissa and Mahila Development Centre, Bihar organized Rallys with children who disseminated posters and bumper stickers produced as a part of the campaign collat-erals by Butterflies, Delhi. Shreyas, Kerala, organized a workshop with 50 children through which they carried out interactive sessions and group work with children. They also conducted school campaigning programmes in four schools in the tribal areas of Waynad district with 800 children and 40 teachers who actively took part in putting up posters in the school premises as well as the near by areas. Sadhbhabna, Keonjar organised a rally with 70 children in Prayas, a school for differently abled children in Naranpur, Keonjar in Orissa. In September, they also organised a debate competi-tion with children on “Is a Caring Family A Child’s first right” in which more than 100 children took part.

Likewise, in Sri Lanka, Kantha Shakthi Organization (KSO), organised a workshop on 12th August, 2013 for officers working at the grassroots level at the Divisional Secretariat (DS) office to identify and strengthen vulnerable families in Badaragama village in Kalutara district. A total no. of 125 participants comprising of Child rights promotion officers, Village Sub Divisions head, Welfare scheme officers, Development Officers and Field Officers took part in the workshop. Five Awareness Raising Work-shops for parents and children were organised in the months of August and Septem-ber in Damhana, Godakumbura, Happugasthena, Panana, Walakadagama in Balangoda respectively. The workshops mainly focused on facilitating group discus-sions among children and adults who discussed about the various issues they confront in their daily lives owing to the pressure of economic and social instabilities ranging from lack of job opportunities for parents to harmful practices like child marriage.

Meanwhile, in Nepal, Child Nepal organised a National workshop on “My Family is my First Right” on 18th– 19th August, 2013. The objective of the workshop was to sensitize government agencies on child rights issues, to promote advanced and posi-tive changes in the implementation of policies and legislations. A total of 66 partici-pants from various government and non government institutions like National Human Rights Commission, Central Children’s Welfare Board, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Women, Child and Social Welfare, Women and Children Cell of police, other non governmental institutions, media persons etc. took part in the workshop. Five presen-tations on thematic areas like Child Marriage, Trafficking, Sexual Abuse and Exploita-tion, Corporal Punishment and Child Labour were also presented during the workshop. The discussions were further incorporated in the recommendations put forth by the Nepal chapter during the SAAGN regional consultation held later in the same month.

In Bangladesh, Art competitions were organized by two organizations, Come to Work (CTW), Dinajpur and Centre for Rights and Development –CRD, Panchaghra on 22nd and 17th August, 2013 respectively. The art competitions were held with the objective of spreading larger awareness among school functionaries, children and parents. Further, discussion group meeting were organised by three alliance partners, namely; Hitaishi Bangladesh, Dhaka, Jhikor Gacha Development Organization (JDO), Jessore and Manob Kallyan O Samajik Unnyan Sangstha, Khulna on 3rd, 24th and 25th August, 2013 respectively. The meetings were conducted to carry our preparatory discussions on the thematic issues concerning children. The recommen-dations from the meetings were formulated and presented at the Kathmandu regional consultation. Parents meetings were organized by Jhikor Gacha Development Or-ganization (JDO), Jessore, Mayer Anchol, Khulna and Manob Kalyan O Samajik Unnyan Sangsths, Khulna on 19th August, 8th September and 22nd September 2013 respectively. The meetings provided a platform for Urban parents, social activist and child leaders to discuss issues concerning children. Work and Rural Develop-ment (WARD), Jessore organized a workshop on 15 August 2013 for sensitizing the Department of Local Administration on Child Rights and the importance of child sensitive policies and legislations supporting Children’s act 1974. Manob Kalyan O Samajik Unnyan Sangsthan, Khulna also organised a Folk Song competition em-phasizing upon the relevance of child rights in urban and semi– urban areas.

In Afghanistan, the Campaign on Children Rights to the Family was spread exten-sively through SMSs, the company Roshan telecommunications reached out to 3 million people through broadcasting these messages written by children. Five such messages like, “Children should not be deprived of love, respect and compassion,” “Families should treat boys and girls equally,” were selected out of 25 messages written by children from Aschiana on 21st July 2013 in Kabul City.

On 25th September 2013 ,Aschiana, as a part of the Campaign organised a painting and Art Exhibition in which 400 children participated. The paintings exhibited were selected from painting competitions held with children in four provinces,Kabul, Mazar Sharif, Herat and Gardiz in Afghanistan. Children who participated in the event were interviewed and were motivated to express their views on importance of a caring family. The programme was broadcasted National Radio and TV channels.