Luxury yachts to attract tourists to Sri Lanka

Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, Mahinda Amaraweera, M.P., lights the traditional oil lamp at the foundation stone laying ceremony for the new luxury yacht manufacturing facility at Beruwala.

Sri Lanka recently embarked on a novel project to manufacture and market luxury yachts as a new initiative under the country’s tourism drive. The foundation stone for the yacht factory was laid at a ceremony presided over by the Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, Mahinda Amaraweera, M.P. Several distinguished guests including Chathura Senaratne, M.P. were present on the occasion.The proposed luxury yacht manufacturing facility located at the Beruwala Fisheries Harbour is a joint-venture between the Building a Future Foundation (BAFF) and Solar Impulse (Pvt) Ltd. BAFF was founded by one of Colombo’s leading business families, the Jinasenas, and Pierre Pringiers, the Honorary Consul for Belgium in Sri Lanka, as a long-term extension of the Solideal Loadstar Rehabilitation Trust (SLRT) which was created in response to the 2004 tsunami to rebuild the southern coast.It built houses for 15,000 beneficiaries with a total budget of 5 million Euros. They are also co-founders of Loadstar (Pvt) Ltd. (now Camso-Loadstar).BAFF aims to improve the living conditions of a thousand underprivileged persons who depend on the resources of the ocean while respecting and preserving their environment.BAFF’s impact model is to provide vocational training to youth, to incubate businesses by bringing in professional expertise and support, to create sustainable employment and to generate stable incomes for the young generation and their families.”We have decided to build boats for the tourism industry,” says Pierre Pringiers. “That is to build yachts and eventually own the yachts and charter them out to tour and hotel operators and make it a part of the attraction of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination.””We have already invested four million dollars in the whole project including the boat building side, and we are planning to invest 26 million dollars in the next five years. We are looking for partners as I’m not doing this for myself,” the 71 year-old Pringiers explained. “My purpose is not to make money on this but to put this on the rails and to try to convince I would say, fellow Sri Lankans – because I also feel like a Sri Lankan today – and fellow Sri Lankan companies to come and join us in this effort. If we don’t do it now, we will be taken over by others and people will complain about all the multinationals being here and little being left. My vision is therefore to have leisure and yachting and yacht building and yacht chartering developed in Sri Lanka with deep roots into the country.”Speaking on the occasion, Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, Hon. Mahinda Amaraweera, M.P., said that it was an occasion for joy not just for Beruwala, but for the whole country as the benefits of the project would accrue to the whole of Sri Lanka. “On the one hand, not only would our youth be able to secure employment, but we will also be able to earn a large amount of foreign exchange. Similarly, it is very clear that these organisations will make a significant contribution to the tourism industry.” The minister also said that Sri Lanka had exceeded its annual tourist arrival target by about November last year. This year too he said,the government expected that the targets would be achieved by about October. “Sri Lanka is now known the world over as a very ‘tourist friendly’ country. The factory that is being set up here will be the largest sail boat manufacturing facility in the country. It makes us very proud that foreigners as well as Sri Lankans today show a marked preference to go back to this ancient navigational method. We believe that this project will pave the way for us to begin a fishery-based tourism industry. Tourists have shown a preference to visit places allied to the fisheries industry and even take part in some of the activities. On behalf of the government and the ministry, I assure you that we will give the maximum assistance to develop this industry with new technology in partnership with the private sector.”Sri Lanka had favourable investment climate even during turmoil

Pringiers who was attracted by the country’s natural rubber, and arrived in Sri Lanka in 1980, also spoke of the successes since then, particularly during the conflict in the country. “Thirty years ago I created a joint-venture with the Jinasenas which is called Camso-Loadstar for the manufacture of solid industrial tyres in Sri Lanka.This was my second project. The first was with Associated Motorways. Camso-Loadstar has now become the No. 1 in the world for the production and sale of industrial solid tyres. Sri Lanka has also become the No. 1 producer in the world with more than 50% of the world market. That’s quite an achievement for a small country like Sri Lanka and it’s also an example of what can be done here and how favourable the investment climate actually is.Particularly because, we did our success story in a period of turmoil when Sri Lanka was virtually at war.”