National Productivity Awards Ceremony
23 October 2007, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great honor for me to attend this 13th National Productivity and Quality Award ceremony together with Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickramanayaka and all the other distinguished dignitaries. I would like to congratulate the winners of the coveted awards for their success in promoting productivity and quality in their respective organizations.

Of the 20 APO member countries and territories, 15 have introduced a national quality and productivity award system. Among those 15 members, Sri Lanka has relatively long experience in its award system, since it was adopted 13 years ago, immediately after Singapore and Japan adopted theirs. The system here is better organized than those in many other APO countries, contributing a great deal to the promotion of productivity in the nation. This result is thanks to the efforts of all the people concerned including those in the manufacturing sector, public sector, and education sector. But special mention should be made of the central government, which has consistently championed the awards as exemplified by the presence of Prime Minister Wickramanayaka here at today’s ceremony.

In the past, the APO has organized three multicountry training courses, five seminars, and 10 observational study missions on quality award systems and in each one a participant from Sri Lanka played an active role. Sri Lanka also hosts three or four APO projects annually, such as the Forum on Productivity-linked Wage Systems, Workshop on Productivity Showcases, and Seminar on Organic Farming. In other words, Sri Lanka has been one of the greatest contributors to and a major beneficiary of APO activities.

Currently, Sri Lanka enjoys the highest GNI per capita among APO member countries in South Asia. Among the same group of countries, Sri Lanka ranks only after India in the Global Competitiveness Index compiled by the World Economic Forum. But with near-universal literacy and with other social indicators among the best in the South Asian region, Sri Lanka has great economic potential and can expect to improve its economic standing in the region even further.

In my view, this can be achieved if all the stakeholders make renewed efforts to improve national productivity. I believe what Professor Paul Krugman of MIT pointed out in one of his introductory books on economics: “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.”

In conclusion, I would like to assure you that the APO is ready to cooperate with Sri Lanka as much as possible in promoting the productivity of this great country.

Thank you.

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