{"id":91797,"date":"2019-07-30T15:33:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T22:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91797"},"modified":"2019-07-30T15:33:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T22:33:19","slug":"my-roller-coaster-ride-in-sri-lanka-trying-to-develop-ship-building-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/30\/my-roller-coaster-ride-in-sri-lanka-trying-to-develop-ship-building-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"My roller coaster ride in Sri Lanka trying to develop ship building industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Dr Sarath Obeysekera\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>After a six-year struggle with unionised dockworkers and corrupt politicians, I somehow managed one and only shipyard in the nineties. After a stint in the oil and gas-related marine industry in Europe I returned to the motherland with grandiose plans to develop the blue economy <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The long struggle started with a plan to establish Yacht Repair and boatbuilding yard in Galle harbour. After a marathon run with the Sri Lankan bureaucracy, it took two years to sign the agreement with ports authority. Though the investor was very much frustrated, commenced building the yard. After few months investor bolted away due to the fiasco in Aluthgama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years went and man new investor could not be he mustered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SLPA canceled the agreement in 2014.Five years since the cancellation of the agreement SLPA has not yet attracted an investor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moved to Beruwala fishery harbour and hauled few ships to repair. Fishermen blocked the activities and \u00a0we retreated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moved to Mutwal in Colombo and managed to lease out the inactive fishery harbour and completed the development of a shipyard with local investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Local banks supported by providing loans. Since the beginning of this year ships were not arriving for repair and bank loan could not be serviced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week bank advertised to auction all the assets of the shipyard. Sri LANKA customs were also gunning after the directors of the shipyard for a shortfall of duty payment due to a genuine error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Customs &nbsp;sent a letter giving 10 days to pay or\ndirectors will be arrested<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such a national industry, much needed for the island will see a natural death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Before I land in jail after such a struggle to develop the Marine industry, I would like to tell the politicians in Sri Lanka that the whole country is on the wrong track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Sarath Obeysekera\u00a0 After a six-year struggle with unionised dockworkers and corrupt politicians, I somehow managed one and only shipyard in the nineties. After a stint in the oil and gas-related marine industry in Europe I returned to the motherland with grandiose plans to develop the blue economy The long struggle started with a plan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sarath-obeysekera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}