Thursday 25 / April / 2024
Muscat: Sri Lanka Embassy in the Sultanate along with the Export Development Board of Sri Lanka (EDB) organised an introductory webinar meeting in association with Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) with a view to connecting Sri Lankan and Omani Information and Communications Technology/ Business Process Management (ICT/BPM) sector companies.
Opening the webinar, the Director-General of the Export Development Board of Sri Lanka, Chitranjali Dissanayake, said Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman, Ameer Ajwad, had stated that the Information and Communications Technology (lCT) has emerged today as the most vital means of both resolving challenges and responding to the new reality.
The COVID-19 crisis has triggered the need to further enhance international collaboration in this sector. He also pointed out that since Sri Lanka and Oman have identified the ICT sector as the key priority in their national policy framework, ICT/BPM companies in both countries could find synergies for collaboration.
To this end, the ambassador informed that the Embassy would organise B2B webinar meetings between the ICT/BPM companies of both countries in the near future.
He further stated that as the Ouran ICT sector emphasises innovation-driven solutions, Sri Lankan companies could leverage their experiences gained from the projects such as Smart Cities, Special Economic Zones, Tourism, and Telecommunication projects.
Sri Lankan ICT/BPM companies could also offer IT solutions for the Omani banking sector, aerospace, defence, stock exchange and so on.
Welcoming this initiative, Director, Business Development of KOM, Saif Hamdan Al Riyami, provided with a briefing on the ICT/BPM industry at the Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) having Oman's first and most successful tech park and hosting over 190 future-focused domestic, regional and global companies, institutions and organisations.
Assistant Director, Export Services of the EDB Vajira Kularathne introduced the ICT/BPM industry in Sri Lanka followed by presentations from industry experts. While BPM/KPM sector opportunities in Sri Lanka were introduced by SLASSCOM (Sri Lanka Association for Software and Services Companies) Director Shiraz Lye, IT sector opportunities in Sri Lanka were introduced by FITIS (The Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka) Director, Theekshana Kumara.
Sri Lankan ICT/BPM companies, namely TIQRI Corporation, Metatechno Lanka Company (Private) Limited, lnexis Consulting (Pvt) Ltd, lnformate Private Limited, ZILLIONe Business Solutions Pvt Ltd, Master Minds Technologies (Pvt) Ltd, Arimac Lanka Pvt Ltd, Design Box (PVT) LTD, ERP Lanka (PVT) Ltd, presented their profiles during the webinar. ICT/BPM sector in Sri Lanka has been identified as one of the strategic National Export Strategy (NES) initiatives and it ranks as the 4th largest foreign exchange generator of Sri Lanka which contributed US$ one billion in 2019.
The sector has more than 400 SMEs and large scale companies as well as more than 500 startups that are catering to prominent markets in the GCC, EU, USA, UK, Japan, Australia etc. More than 120,000 IT professionals are working in the sector. The EDB along with the industry associations unveiled the brand name for the ICT/BPM sector of Sri Lanka in 2018 as "lsland of Ingenuity - Sri Lanka Knowledge Solutions". This accelerated the promotional activities of this industry in the international market.
