Annual Report -2013/14

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE WOOD BASED INDUSTRIALISTS’ ASSOCIATION FOR 2013/2014.SECOND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON 27TH JUNE 2014

I am very pleased and privileged to see a gathering of distinguished business personalities from the wood sector. To supplement the strength of the industry, we warmly welcome the distinguished invitees who mostly matter to our success.

Please let me briefly table the major events that took place during the last financial year where the Executive Committee worked hard to achieve them.

  1. New office bearers were elected to the association through a nomination process strictly according to the guidelines set out in the Memorandum and Articles of Association of WBIA.
  2. The first ever Annual General Meeting too was held in a formal manner on 13TH December 2012 at Parkstreet Mews in the presence of a large number of WBIA members, their guests and distinguished invitees. The new committee and new office bearers took charge of the association. Life was much easier for our new committee due to the consistency of the hard work done by the previous committee headed  by Lakshman Tilakaratna and Walter Gunawardena. I sincerely hope these industry giants will continue to support the association.
  3. Proposed and pursued by Lakshman Tilakaratne and ably supported by the general membership of the association, we were able to develop and establish a website for WBIA.  There is much room for the site to develop further and the committee looks forward to the new management to do the needful.
  4. The Sinhala version of the membership application was finalized and made available through the website.
  5. The Committee conducted an awareness seminar at the EDB auditorium on 5th June 2013 with the participation of over 100 industry members. The committee noted that there is ample scope to disseminate knowledge for the benefit of the wood sector industrialists.
  6. The committee was very pleased to enroll three new companies to the association namely
Techwood (pvt) Ltd
Furniture Factory (pvt) Ltd and
Dhananandana Furniture (pvt) Ltd. Digana
  1. WBIA organized a joint trade stall at the ‘ Sri Lanka Wood 2013’ international fair held at the BMICH from 27-29 September 2013.
  2. Three companies, namely A Wood Lanka (pvt) Ltd, Leema Creations (pvt) Ltd and Chemwood Exports (pvt) Ltd  were sponsored by EDB for participation at the ‘INDEX MUMBAI 2013’ international Fair. However no participation took place due to unforeseen obstacles at the last moment.
  3. The government favourably considered  the proposals made by the WBIA and following concessions were granted through the Budget Proposals of Financial Year 2013/2014.
a.       CESS on the importation of wooden furniture and parts was further increased by 10%.
b.      CESS on the importation of Sand Paper was reduced
c.       All government institutions were requested to procure their wooden furniture requirements locally before attempting to import.
d.      Removed all restrictions in transport of wooden furniture and relaxed regulations in the transport of sawn timber.
  1. Bhathiya Bulumulla relinquished duties as the Secretary of the Association after rendering a very successful period of service.
Further I take this opportunity to congratulate the new Executive Committee headed by Channa Wijesekera and wish them great success in taking our association to greater heights.
Thank you very much and I wish you a pleasant evening..

Lakshman Wanniatchi
President
WOOD BASED INDUSTRIALISTS’ ASSOCIATION

27 June 2014