The annual export swards ceremony, organised by the National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka serves to recognise and reward Sri Lankan exporters of products and services and also service providers to exporters, on their performance in the international market.
The Chamber is celebrating the pearl anniversary of the Exports Awards this year, completing 30 years of success, on the theme “Recognising, Inspiring and Strengthening” - 30 years of unbroken commitment to Sri Lankan Exporters on December 2 at Hotel Shangri-La, Colombo.
The National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka has made it our duty to strengthen, support, inspire and celebrate those exporters who are playing a pivotal role for the benefit of the country.
This event has been conducted over the past 29 years without a disruption.
The structure of the event reflects the current trends in international trade. In this respect during the past three years, the structure has been confined to 28 products and services sectors to give opportunities to many exporters to showcase their success and achievements.
Since then each year the sectors have been further refined, through the inclusion of specific sub sectors under the main products and services sectors to provide opportunities to exporters of specific products and services in respect of these sub sectors.
These refinements have been based on the feedback received from exporters of Products and Services as well as the developments that have occurred in International Trade in respect of these sub Sectors.
As an added feature NCE confers special awards in respect of the overall sectoral awards. These special awards relate to Value Addition, Research and Development, Innovation, Branding as well as Highest Foreign Exchange Earners. Additionally, a special award is also conferred to the best Woman Exporter, the Best SME Exporter, as well as the enterprise which has engaged the skills of Disabled persons in their export activities to the best extent.
The awards this year will be in respect of Export Performance for the year 2021 and adding a special feature, NCE introduced the NCE Challenge Trophy last year under Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large Categories for organisations who perform ethical trading practices.
The structure of the application form related to the event is itself an ‘evolving living document’ which incorporates refinements, and improvements included each year to accommodate modern trends in International Trade.
In this respect a special feature this year is the indication of the marks that will be allocated in respect of the various criteria for evaluation of applications, to enable applicants to focus their attention on the specific sections in the application form, to highlight their specific strengths.
The event is open for participation by member exporters of the chamber as well as non-member exporters, and service providers to exporters. The main requirement for eligibility is that an applicant should have been engaged in export business as a registered exporter for a period of two years, preceding the year of conduct of the event. The application form is a comprehensive document which captures all important aspects related to exports in the modern context of International Trade.
These include the absolute export volume and value of a particular product or service, and growth of exports over the preceding years, as well as a range of management, and financial aspects which contribute to sustain an export enterprise.
The impact of the Enterprise on the environment and other stakeholders, aspects related to waste control and waste management, productivity and quality control, international standards that are applicable to the relevant products and services, efforts made at innovation and differentiation of products and services, and branding of products and services are among the other criteria for evaluation.
The selection of Award Winners is carried out by an independent and professional Panel of Judges competent in the various aspects of exports. the panel of judges is assisted by a separate ‘technical committee’ comprising knowledgeable persons in the technical aspects of exports, who carry out the initial evaluation of applications, and makes recommendations to the panel of judges for the final selection of award winners.
The Chamber also engages the services of a leading multi-national audit firm to provide professional inputs to the panel of judges to ensure transparency, and credibility of the entire selection process of award winners, which has enabled to benchmark this event for its professionalism, and high Standard.
The event confers Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards to achievers of the Standards determined by the Panel of Judges. The ‘Most Outstanding Exporter of the Year’ as well as the ‘Most Outstanding Exporter Runner-up of the Year’ are selected out of the Sectoral Award Winners.
Additionally, several Special Awards for specific aspects related Exports are conferred.