The Once and Future Industrial Northern Province
By Jekhan Aruliah
The Chamber of Commerce and Industries of Yarlparnam, CCIY, was born in the short period of optimism in 1999. When the Sri Lankan Civil War, at that time already aflame for 16 years, seemed to be heading toward a settlement. Opposing sides were sitting at the same negotiating table. That optimism was dashed with the war continuing for another 10 years, ending only in 2009. During the war the Northern economy was based on the public sector (schools, post offices, bureaucrats and the like), and on traders (bringing in goods like kerosene, powdered milk etc and selling for profit). And on farmers and fishermen where they could be left without military interruption for a full season. Though the economy was still running the industrial sector had gone quiet, virtually comatose.
The industrial sector had withered. Frequent displacements of the population, fleeing as the war’s battles and clearances moved people from one area to another, made industrial production very difficult. What couldn’t be quickly loaded onto the back of a truck, or carried in the basket of a bicycle, was being lost. Personal as well as industrial items. A friend of mine rejuvenating ancestral farmland found bundles of personal items buried wrapped in sheets. Items unwieldy to hurriedly carry, buried as the owners fled through his ancestral fields. Hoping one day to return and retrieve, which never happened.
Factories were destroyed, machinery looted and repurposed for war needs. Many of those wealthier industrialists left, abandoning their enterprises meaning to return when stability returned. Many of these industrialists, decades older, never came back. Nearly 30 years of conflict, lasting more than a generation, left them rooted with children and grandchildren and businesses in other places and other countries. Even 16 years after the war ended I have seen their desolate dilapidated factories scattered around the North, home for bats and crows, goats and cows. With the “industrial spirit” of the North broken many half hearted attempts started post war, some with NGO funding, remain unfinished and under or unused.
I spoke with CCIY’s Director Administration Ms Keerthika Sutharsan and Executive Director Mr K.Vignesh. Vignesh is a former Chairman, and one of CCIY’s founders in 1999. Vignesh said before the war started in earnest in 1983 there were over 750 significant industrial enterprises in the North. Some were large government owned factories: KKS cement factory, Paranthan chemical factory. Some large private factories: Aluminium factory in Allaipiddy, Glass factory in in Neervelly. The family owned Leyden Garments had run a 40,000 square foot factory in the centre of Jaffna on Hospital Road. With modern machinery and hundreds of staff it was nationally famous for its vests and underwear. That Leyden factory is still there, empty but for a caretaker’s family, with shrapnel scars, waiting to be brought back into productive use. My friend Jude, son of the founder of Leyden Garments, even now seeks a partner to revive or repurpose the factory. There was a thriving cottage industry making clay pots and tiles sold around Sri Lanka. Whole villages were engaged making clay products, combined their production scaled up to be virtual factories. Fabric mills, both private and of the Cooperative Movement, once churned out their cloth. Cloth mills are there, like dinosaurs their reddening mechanical bones untouched for years. I have seen looms still threaded, patiently waiting for the long gone operators to fulfil long lost demand.
Agriculture and Fisheries produced enough for local consumption, and more than enough to be sent outside the province. Lobsters, prawns, seacucumber were flown to Colombo. Before the 1983 war, The Northern Province was Sri Lanka’s largest producer of fish. An ADB report states“In 1983,prior to escalation of the conflict, the Northern Province, which has 40% of the nation’s coastal belt, accounted for 40% of its marine fish catch”. A report by the Government’s Ministry of Fisheries shows in 1983 Jaffna was the largest source of fish catch, but by 2022 it had fallen to 9th position.
Mr. K.Vaseeharan, the current CCIY Chairman, said during the war ExpoAir was running five flights a day. Vaseeharan should know, he himself was the General Manager of ExpoAir in Jaffna at that time. Tickets were Rs10k one way between Colombo and Jaffna’s Palaly Airport. Those 50 seater planes came into Jaffna carrying visitors with their luggage packed with items scarce in the war torn North. Relieved of this precious cargo, the planes returned carrying fresh seafood from companies like Annai Seafoods, a company that continues to thrive to this day. Ships bringing essential goods to the North returned to Trinco and Colombo filled with onions, chillis, and tobacco.
At the end of the war in 2009, for several months there was a flurry of antiques taken from ruined temples and homes in the North, sold at high prices in Colombo. Statues, doors, window frames, brass lamps, some centuries old can be found in the better quarters of Colombo. Though the loot of war, at least well preserved for posterity. Rather than becoming scavenged building materials and rotting away where they lay.
Jaffna still has a proliferation of tiny grocery shops liberally scattered across the district. Each supporting the livelihood of a family, some for generations. Good for the day workers, who purchase a few hundred grammes enough to last a day or two. Personal relationships and small quantities, close and small enough for the shop owner to give credit when the need arose.
Current CCIY Membership and Partners
Though the chamber has the name “Yarlparnam”, which means “Jaffna”, it is in fact open to the whole Northern Province. 90% of members are industrialists, also with some of the bigger Northern traders. CCIY has about 275 active registered members, with more than 500 on its mailing list. Most are in the food processing industries. CCIY partners with several national and international organisations, and government bodies to implement their programmes.
National organisations include: the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL); The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC); GS1 Lanka; The Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI); National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL); Confederation of Micro, Small, and Medium Industries (COSMI); and the National Chamber of Exporters (NCE).
Overseas and international organisations include the Australian Tamil Chamber of Commerce (ATCC) and the Canadian Tamils’ Chamber of Commerce (CTCC). International Labour Organization (ILO); Physikalisch-Technische Bundestanstalt (PTB of Germany)
Governmental Organisations: National Enterprise Development Authority (NEDA); Industrial Development Board (IDB); Export Development Board (EDB); Small Enterprises Development Division (SED) of the Ministry of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development.
With funding and assistance from these organisations and bodies CCIY conducts training and technical support for small and micro businesses. Trying to lift them , and lift the industrial North.
CCIY’s initiatives include an MOU with the National Chamber of Exporters. Many of our producers are ‘micro’ in scale. Too small to export, so they sell at low prices to middlemen. CCIY is looking into how these micro enterprises can export directly by combining their production to fill 20’-40’ shipping containers.
Bureacratic and Southern view
It is a perennial problem, faced I am sure not only by the Northern Province but also by other provinces outside the Western Province. A lack of effective consultation and action by the provincial bureaucracy, by the central government, and by international bodies based in Colombo. None of whom have a good understanding of the Northern Private Sector.
Where the Private Sector is strong, as it is in Colombo, it has the power to influence these bodies perhaps with representation within the bodies. The top brass of the Colombo private sector socialise with the top brass of these other bodies. These entities live in the same environment, speak the same language.
Where the Private Sector is weakly represented, including in the Northern Province, it feels it is not adequately heard. The cursory visits to the North by the Colombo and internationally based organisations seem like tick-boxing exercises. I myself have been at forums where the visiting body didn’t have anyone who spoke Tamil, relying on one of the untrained locals to fulfil this role.
CCIY sees it as a core responsibility to represent the Northern private sector in these forums. For example the Government has been talking, only talking, for many years about industrial zones in the Northern Province. That talk has started again with the NPP government, hopefully with greater sincerity. The locations and purposes of those zones seem to lack Northern private sector input.
We in the Northern Province are also at fault. The Northern Province rarely misses a chance to miss a chance. Our Tourism Industry is loaded with low hanging fruit, being left to rot. The Thiruvallar Jaffna Cultural Centre, which should have been a great cultural draw, has seen only sporadic activity several years after its completion. Clung onto by public sector bodies, this Cultural Centre is a prime prospect for the private sector to create a leisure hub seeding cultural activities across the city. There are underutilised industrial assets, held by private and public sectors, scattered around. Rice mills, oil mills, batik and juice and other factories failing to reach their potential.
The CCIY was founded late in 1999. Its 25th Birthday was in 2024, soon it will be 26 years old. The private sector in the Northern Province is punching under its weight. Patient targeted investment, not just of money but of talent and of networks, can change that!
( — The writer Jekhan Aruliah was born in Sri Lanka and moved with his family to the UK when he was two years of age. Brought up in London, he graduated from Cambridge University in 1986 with a degree in Natural Sciences. Jekhan then spent over two decades in the IT industry, for half of which he was managing offshore software development for British companies in Colombo and in Gurgaon (India). In 2015 Jekhan decided to move to Jaffna where he is now involved in social and economic projects. He can be contacted at jekhanaruliah@gmail.com — )