Originally appeared on Lanka Business Online, Sunday Times, Yukthiya, Economy Next, The Morning, Ceylon Today, Daily FT, and Capital News
Advocata Institute launches report on regulations to small business and Red Tape Project
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Advocata Institute hosted their latest event, “පොඩි බිස්නස් පොඩි කරන කරන රතු පටි රෙගුලාසි” on the 5th of March 2020. This event served as the official launch of the Red Tape Project, the culmination of their ongoing work on removing legal and regulatory barriers faced by small and micro entrepreneurs.
The objective of the Red Tape Project is to identify, study, and advocate for the removal of legal and regulatory barriers faced by businesses in Sri Lanka. As a first step towards the process, Advocata launched a report on ‘Barriers to Micro and Small Enterprises in Sri Lanka’, as well as www.redtape.lk, a website for entrepreneurs to submit their frustrations or views on red tape and government processes and regulations that need to be removed or simplified.
The work on this project was then followed up by the #MystoryLK online competition, where Advocata asked micro and small entrepreneurs islandwide to send in essays, in Sinhala, Tamil, and English, detailing the barriers that they had faced in setting up their businesses and how they believed that the system could change to enable to reduce the issues that they faced. Advocata awarded the winners of the competition at the event. The competition was won by Madasamy Suventhiran. Second place was awarded to Vikum Rajapakse and third place to Elijah Hoole.
The report, ‘Barriers to Micro and Small Enterprises in Sri Lanka’ provides an understanding of the landscape of micro and small enterprises in the country, drawing from an island-wide survey. The survey highlights the various regulatory barriers that these enterprises face, ranging from issues of finance, registration, space and labour. The report focuses on addressing one of these barriers and proposes recommendations to streamline and rationalise the process of registration for sole proprietors and partnerships.
The event also hosted a panel discussion with Dr S. Rajapatirana (Chair, Academic Programme, Advocata Institute), Milinda Rajapaksha (Councillor, Colombo Municipal Council) and Achala Samaradiwakara (Co-Founder and Managing Director, Good Market). The panel was moderated by Dhananath Fernando (COO, Advocata Institute).
Read this article in Sinhala here.