The 25th Presidential Export Awards 2023 (PEA) ceremony will be held at the BMICH on Thursday, November 23 under the patronage of the President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
PEA 2023 organised by the EDB, honours and acknowledges exporters who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in fostering the growth in economic development.
Around 1,500 invitees including Ministers, Diplomats, Government officials, well-wishers and exporters are expected to be present.
This year’s awards ceremony will be held to recognise the country’s best exporters for two financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23. The awards will be presented in two main categories with 13 overall awards and 51 products and services sector awards for each financial year.
Merit certificates for the deserving sectors will also be awarded as decided by the panel of judges based on the performance of the applicants. The selections for the awards will be done by an eminent panel headed by a retired Judge of the Supreme Court.
In line with the new Government policy framework, the EDB has implemented new strategies to expand Sri Lanka’s exports and it is expected to increase Sri Lanka’s exports substantially.
Initiatives taken by the exporters in the areas of market diversification, product diversification, innovation, value addition, introduction of indigenous brands to the world, sustainable initiatives in exports, development in regional value chains, were considered when designing the overall awards.
The selection of sectoral awards will be competitive as evaluation is not only based on export earnings but also several other criteria, such as value addition for exports, employment creation, growth of export earnings, export proceeds repatriation, environment sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
This year the EDB has introduced an online application portal pea.edb.gov.lk dedicated to the Presidential Export Awards.
Exporting companies could submit online applications through this portal up to August 7. Apart from the online application, exporters could obtain details such as award categories, guidelines, evaluation criteria, instruction videos to fill the application and the testimonials given past winners.
The award winners will receive a trophy and a certificate. They will receive the privilege to use the Presidential Export Award logo as a marketing tool for a three-year period from this date.