Sri Lanka Retailers’ Association hosts 7th Annual General Meeting
The Sri Lanka Retailer’s Association (SLRA) held its 7th Annual General Meeting at Hilton Residencies last week and Charitha Subasinghe was named President Elect for the year 2024/2025.
Subasinghe, stated, “The January 2023 to January 2024 the price increases of products were about 60% higher. This has led to the contraction of the demand by about 27%. If that was the contraction for food the contraction in our other subcategories of non-food retailing would be even more significant.”
Furthermore, the operating costs of our retail plant are significantly higher. The Turnover based taxes have gone up significantly. In addition to that we are also having competition from the Parallel imports. These importers do not pay the necessary taxes and thus are able to sell at a lower price.
“With the taxes increasing, the parallel import composition has increased. In addition to the impact to the Formal Retail business, the Leakage to the potential tax revenue to the Government runs into Billions of rupees. We have been as an association taking this issue with the different stakeholders. There is some progress but still a lot more to do to close it out.”
“The contribution to the Sri Lankan Economy from the Retail Sector is much bigger when we look at the Retail sector as a total Ecosystem.”
The new Executive Council for the SLRA for the year 2024/2025 are Vice Presidents: Infiyaz M. Ali, CEO of Healthguard Pharmacy Ltd and Mahesh Wijewardena, Group CEO of Singer Sri Lanka, Kumar De Silva, CEO of SPAR SL Private Ltd.
General Secretary: Asanka Rajapaksa, Director of D Samson & Sons (Pvt) Ltd.
Assistant General Secretary: Ruvini Kariyawasam, Director of Corporate Affairs at Perera & Sons Bakers Ltd
Treasurer: Harsha Maduranga, GM/Head of Marketing of Vision Care
Assistant Treasurer: Shabier Suban, Director of Fashion Bug
Council Members: Indika Perera, COO, Cargills Foods Company (Pvt) Ltd. Avanthie de Soysa, Assistant General Manager, Overseas Reality Pvt Ltd. Chathura Jayawardana, Chief Marketing Officer, Abans PLC, Murali Prakash, Past President, Sri Lanka Retailers Association and Former President, Hussain Sidique, Deputy Managing Director of Hameedia and Founder President.
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