Friday Sep 11, 2026
Friday Sep 11, 2026
Friday, 11 September 2026 06:48 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Ashroff Omar - Pic by Shehan Gunasekara
By Charumini de Silva
Brandix Lanka CEO Ashroff Omar called for a system of Customs pre-clearance directly from manufacturing plants to eliminate waiting time in the supply chain, warning that Sri Lanka’s current tariff advantage over regional competitors is not guaranteed to last and that infrastructure, logistics costs, and efficiency remain the areas within the country’s control.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the inauguration of International Maritime Conference 2026 on Wednesday, Omar said rapidly changing customer expectations were reshaping the apparel and logistics industries, making traditional measures of competitiveness, such as cost and delivery, insufficient.
“I think, looking at the way things are moving, a 25-year horizon is premature, because things are changing extremely fast,” he said.
He said customer demand was increasingly centred on cost, speed, and flexibility, including the ability to handle smaller order volumes.
Omar said this was making logistics an integral part of the apparel production process rather than a function that could simply be handed over to freight forwarders once manufacturing was completed.
He stressed that the need for speed is particularly acute in fashion, where delays can rapidly erode the commercial value of products.
“Fashion moves so fast now that a garment has almost become perishable. If it doesn’t arrive on time, it loses its value,” he said.
Although technology and artificial intelligence (AI) offered significant opportunities to accelerate production and supply chain management, he said current adoption remained extremely limited.
“With the advent of AI, I believe current usage in our industry is under 0.5%,” he added.
He pointed out that productivity gains achieved inside factories could easily be lost because of delays further along the supply chain.
“We might save five days in production, but the goods can then sit at port or with freight forwarders for another 10 days, erasing all those gains,” he said, warning that inefficiency will continue to cost the industry.
As a proposed fix, Omar said the industry is pushing for a system where Customs clearance happens before goods even leave the manufacturing plant, so shipments aren’t held up later in documentation or processing once they’re ready to move.
“I’m not proposing faster ships. I’m saying we can eliminate unnecessary waiting time in the process,” he said, adding that implementing such measures within the next one to two years could deliver a meaningful competitiveness gain for Sri Lanka against competing apparel-exporting countries.
Omar reiterated that speed had become a critical competitive factor and called for strong Government support to accelerate digitalisation.
“As I said, speed is now critical, waiting time has to stop. That requires strong Government support to ensure digitalisation is executed quickly,” he said.
He cautioned against ambitious plans that fail to materialise, arguing that the industry needed practical improvements that could be delivered quickly.
“Sri Lanka’s apparel sector had so far benefitted from remaining broadly competitive with its regional peers, if not ahead. That’s helped us in the short term,” he said.
However, Omar said maintaining that advantage over the longer term would depend increasingly on improvements to infrastructure, logistics, and supply chain efficiency.
On trade policy, he said Sri Lanka had limited control over tariff decisions taken by major markets such as the US and Europe and should instead concentrate on factors within its control.
“We can’t control what tariff regime the US, Europe, or any other country chooses to impose. We can only control how competitive we make ourselves relative to our peers,” he said.
He acknowledged that some competing countries enjoy full duty-free access to key markets, but noted that those countries also faced other disadvantages.
The Brandix CEO credited the Government with managing trade relationships reasonably well so far.
“Our Government needs to maintain strong relationships with major trading partners to ensure Sri Lanka is not placed at a disadvantage. I think, so far, that’s been managed reasonably well,” he said.
Stressing that strengthening ports and supply chains to cut costs remains entirely within the country’s own control, he said: “We need to look inward, strengthening ports and the supply chain to reduce costs and improve efficiency is something entirely within our control.”
Omar said conferences of this kind could help push Sri Lanka beyond being simply a transshipment or maritime hub towards becoming a high-speed supply-chain hub.
He called on the conference participants to focus their deliberations on practical measures capable of accelerating that transformation over the coming years.
“I hope your deliberations over the next couple of days move us further in that direction,” he said.
