In Sooriyawewa: The little factory that could

By Shiran Illanperuma

Anusha is not quite sure what she would do and where she would be if she wasn’t here. Young men can go to Colombo in search of their fortunes, or if they are savvy enough even abroad. But for a young woman in rural Hambantota, prospects are pretty slim if there is no work nearby.

“I could be sitting at home doing nothing if this opportunity wasn’t here,” she says.

Anusha works as a Supervisor for EWIS, a local electronics manufacturing company with a factory based in Sooriyawewa, deep in the emerald heart of Hambantota. It’s an unlikely location to be sure, miles away from the wheezing bustle of urban Colombo.

The promise of Hambantota

But for EWIS Chairman Sanjeewa Wickramanayake, the decision to build here was an obvious one. “You have an airport on the one hand, and a port on the other. It’s a perfect gateway in the south for both import and export. Down here there is plenty of land available and affordable labour too,” he explains.

Established in 2013, EWIS was the first, and perhaps only IT manufacturing company to set up base in Hambantota, soon after the opening of the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) and the Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port. It was a bold move – but given the signs of the time, asmart one.

When the airport was fully operational, Wickramanayake says that parts imported from East and Southeast Asia could be cleared in a matter of four hours or so, speeding up the manufacturing process significantly and cutting costs in terms of shipping.

Today with the airport on hiatus, imported parts have to be cleared in Colombo and transported over land down to Sooriyawewa. The process takes over 72 hours. Time wasted and money lost.

Under the previous regime, Hambantota was on her way to be the new commercial capital of Sri Lanka. Today the remnants of that dream are still visible. Slick black roads slice between lush plantations, but their generous lanes are empty. In some areas the roads have already begun deteriorating, in others they are incomplete. They seem to lead nowhere.

Where it went wrong

As promising as the signs may have been a few years ago, subsequent investigations found that MRIA was an ill-planned venture and one that was haemorrhaging money from the outset. The airport it seems was built against the advice of experts, including a 2004 report from the International Air Transportation Association, which suggested that the money would be better invested in expanding the Bandaranaike International Airport.

But this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Chief Economist of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Anushka Wijesinha has long been both a critic of Hambantota’s failures and an ardent advocate of its potential.

“It’s not enough to build something and expect people to come. You have to market the destination,understand what makes it attractive for investors and what it takes to build a true export hub,” he explained.

“I don’t feel like that kind of plan was there. Rather it was about building it and expecting investors to come. We really need a clever strategy to make that happen. We need to focus on what industries make sense, anything that can take advantage of the airport and ports like heavy industry, time-sensitive production networks, or processed food exports.”

“There’s also potential in Hambantota becoming a regional air cargo hub. Providing Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) services is also an option as these activities require a lot of land which is a luxury that Hambantota has compared to its regional counterparts,” he added.

Creating private sector jobs

In a nutshell, what the airport and port in Hambantota failed to do was attract private investment and in turn create employment opportunities for local folk. EWIS stands as a lone counterpoint to that, but even EWIS enjoys most of its contracts from the public sector with products going to public schools, banks and Government offices.

For Anusha, and over 60 of her peers in the factory, all of whom are in their early-to-mid-twenties, EWIS was a golden opportunity and one that they were hungry for. “I applied for many jobs in the Government sector. These are normally the only opportunities for young women especially. But I got no response,” she said.

While the Government sector has been the employer of choice for many young men and women in rural areas, the private sector has proven to be a tougher sell, generally unable or unwilling to provide salaries of the same calibre. But with a steady monthly salary of around Rs. 35,000, Anusha makes as much as she could working in a similar profession in Colombo.

This is a stark departure from the situation of her father, who is a paddy farmer. Its backbreaking work, and one whose spoils are left to the whims of the seasons. In a good year he can expect to make two lakhs, in a bad year, half of that. His daughter on the other hand can count on a steady four lakhs per year – nearly double her father’s best-case scenario.

It’s the kind of economic leap that Sri Lanka’s aspirational society has long craved but been unable to fully attain despite numerous regime changes and attempted economic policies.

While EWIS may be construed as a success story in Hambantota, its reliance on public sector contracts and the fact that no other private entities have followed suit paint a more sobering picture. Though it has created jobs and in turn funnelled money into the local community, this has still been largely at the expense of the public sector.

However, Wickramanayake is optimistic that the situation can be patched up with time and careful investment.“We have solid experience working with international IT companies like IBM, HP and Dell. With the right incentives we can attract more private investment and eventually begin shipping our products overseas,” he appealed.

Meanwhile Anusha and her peers have bright hopes for the future. The 26-year-old recalls how she and her mostly female peers were at first timid and afraid of the factory’s machinery but now, with experience, are able to churn out over 500 finished products a day with industrial proficiency.

She says, “I’ve always wanted to work in the IT sector so I’m glad this opportunity was available close to home.”