Governor’s Challenge Trophy for Global Commerce Excellence 2017

GATT was the mechanism under which most international trade was conducted from 1948 until 1995, when the WTO or World Trade Organization was formed. What does the term GATT stand for?

Which European city is the location of the Head Quarters of the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA)?

Which government department, involved in international trade related matters, celebrated its bicentenary or the 200th birthday in 2009?

The above were of many interesting and informative questions posed in the past years, to more than 200 contestants vying for the prestigious Global CommerceExcellence Quiz (GCQ) for the Central Bank Governor’s Challenge Trophy.

The event, is independently conducted by the Sri Lanka branch of the International Quizzing Association (IQA), on behalf of the Shippers’ Academy Colombo (SAC) and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). The fourth year event is expected to draw over 200 quizzing talent in the form of 40 teams from the corporate and the public sector comprising banks, mercantile establishments, shipping, Terminal operators export/importindustry, logistics/freight forwarding, telecom and IT industry in addition public sector institutions such as EDB, BOI and Ports take part. 

Since 2011, Seylan Bank, Vindana Ariyawansa individual team and 99x teams have won the prestigious trophy. In addition so have SriLankan Airlines, Sri Lanka Insurance, Dialog Axiata, DFCC Bank, SLECIC, McLaren’s, Hayleys Advantis and Aitken Spence Cargo.

Global commerce knowledge and skills are an essential to the industry asunprecedented opportunities have sprung up to further harness the economic benefits of engaging in international trade. The challenge now is to attract more young people to the commercial world and to improve the skills of all those who are already in the field.

According to the founder of the GCQ and Shippers’ Academy Colombo CEO Rohan Masakorala, the idea behind the Governor’s Challenge Trophy is to uplift the industry standards and to build the image of activities related to global commerce, such as, logistics, shipping, aviation, banking, insurance, ports, trade and support services, etc. This is also a platform to network with the cross section of industry and the public sector. The quiz was a history making event as it also featured, for the first time, international teams from India, Bangladesh, Maldives and Pakistan central banks in 2011. 

The Governor’s ChallengeTrophy is conduced biennially and the other event conducted is the Terminal Operators’ Cup (TOC), both intended at capacity development and encouraging education in the trade.

IQA Country Representative Ruwan Senanayake said: “The purpose of conducting a mind sport of this nature is not only to test the knowledge of participants, but also to test their ability to recall what is known within the stipulated time. Like in any other competitive sports, one has to practice hard and regularly train to keep the mental muscles in top notch to do well in a highly-competitive atmosphere like that is experienced in IQA conducted quizzes.”

This year too the event has the fullest backing of the Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy to conduct the event and he will be the Chief Guest along with IPS Executive Director Dr. Saman Kelegama as Guest of Honour at the awards night on 3 March which will be held at Galadari Hotel, Colombo.

The 2017 corporate quiz is scheduled start at 2 p.m. 3 March, which will be a five-member team with five rounds of questions.

Interested parties may contact Shippers’ Academy Colombo on [email protected] or tel: 011 3560844/ 0773820703. Also see www.shippersacdemy.lk.