Entrepreneurial Lankan Youth!

The door for the Lankan youth to move towards a much needed entrepreneurial culture has opened on 21 December when the national SME giant launched a pioneering initiative aimed at the youth of the country in partnership with ILO. The “Entrepreneurial Reawakening” in Colombo by National Enterprise Development Authority (NEDA) with ILO backing witnessed the launch of www.ye.lk, the special web portal and online one stop shop for young entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka.

“NEDA estimates Lankan youth engaging in SMEs to be a low, only 15% of the youth workforce. Therefore this initiative attempts to increase youth engagement in entrepreneurship through their most common platform, the internet. Sri Lanka’s present internet user total is 4.2 Mn” said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen on 21 December.

Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the “Entrepreneurial Reawakening-Building a Better Tomorrow for the Lankan Entrepreneur” session organised by NEDA with the support of ILO. In addition to the launch of the web portal, a ‘Doing Business Guidebook’, and a newsletter for entrepreneurs called “Vyavasayakaya” was also launched with the participation of Li Donglin (Director – ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives), former Minister Rohitha Bogollagama (who first introduced NEDA bill to Parliament in March 2006), and the newly appointed Chairperson of NEDA, Omar Kamil (former Colombo Mayor).

“I commend former Minister Rohitha Bogollagama for introducing NEDA to safeguard our SMEs. I am also pleased to announce the appointment of former Colombo Mayor Omar Kamil as the new NEDA Chairperson” announced Minister Bathiudeen, and added: “Today’s effort would not have been possible without the valuable support of International Labour Organisation offices in Colombo and I thank and commend ILO’s pioneering assistance to NEDA. The youth of the country are also made a stakeholder in new economic reforms of our Unity government. Therefore there is an urgent need to encourage our youth towards this and we believe that one effective way is engaging them to entrepreneurship and SMEs which is an important sector of our economy. According to government’s latest data Sri Lanka’s SME base consists a little more than one million enterprises and 92% are micro scale enterprises. Small and medium scale businesses tend to be in Service sector while most micro enterprises tend to be in trade sector. Though 92 percent of SMEs are micro scale enterprises their employment generation capacity is very low at only 30 percent of total SME employment. NEDA estimates Lankan youth engaging in SMEs to be a low 15% of the youth workforce and a maximum of 20%. Therefore this initiative attempts to increase youth engagement in entrepreneurship through their most common platform, the internet. Sri Lanka’s present internet user total is a little more than 4.2 Mn. This initiative attempts to increase youth engagement in entrepreneurship through their most common platform, the internet. Sri Lanka’s present internet user total is a little more than 4.2 million. In 2014 the internet usage grew by 9 percent. Use of online services such as Facebook Youtube etc by Lankan youth is a major contributor driving this steady increase. The online web portal launched today by NEDA for our youth “ye dot lk” (ye.lk) is in three languages and functions as a one stop ‘online shop’ to collect and exchange info and business support services for the Lankan youth. For the first time NEDA is entering to support the youth of the country through a single committed project.”

Director of ILO Sri Lanka Li Donglin said that the idea of such an online platform came after speaking to many stakeholders including the youth and service providers. The steady commitment of NEDA made this possible. The Lankan youth unemployment is higher at 20% than national unemployment level of 4%. It appears in Sri Lanka the higher the education level of the youth the higher the probability of their unemployment! Promotion of e-access and entrepreneurship empowers them and addresses the unemployment issues. We are pleased to partner with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Ministry.”

NEDA supports, facilitates enterprise development within Sri Lanka -with special attention to the micro small and medium enterprise sector. This year, NEDA conducted a Business Development Service (BDS) Fair, women entrepreneur development sessions and special Entrepreneurship Development Programs with select Universities, among many of its SME development initiatives.