State-owned Coop-City ranks third most preferred household purchase stop

State-owned ‘Coop-City becomes the third most preferred stop for household purchases amongst locals, beating top supermarket brands in the country according to a leading market research firm.
A 2015 market survey conducted by Lanka Market Research Bureau of UK’s Kantar Group revealed Coop-City has secured third position of the total six supermarket brands established in the nation. Falling below was Keells, securing fourth place, and Arpico, ranking fifth.

The ministry shared that despite a highly competitive private sector driven domestic market, Cooperatives in Sri Lanka continue to report profits and show resilience. While 26 percent of households in Sri Lanka visit other supermarkets, almost 13 percent visit coop-city cooperative shops.
Official data from the ministry showed that of the 14,454 cooperatives in Sri Lanka, majority are profit making while only a handful are faced with financial difficulties. Of the struggling entities a large proportion are not loss making but at breakeven.

al economy, rural SMEs and rural credit. Four percent of Rs 80,800 million total purchase value of provincial primary cooperatives in 2013 were from these farmer and livestock cooperatives.

 
“If we remove the purchases of multi-purpose cooperative societies and only take in the purchases of production and service cooperatives, then almost 55% of cooperative purchases are from farmer and livestock sectors,” shared Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen while addressing the launch of the first ever Cooperatives Week. 

He added that as a result the ministry plans to enhance support to farmer and livestock cooperatives. A ‘Cooperative Reform Taskforce’ would be established to revive the overall coops system. 
Furthermore, the ministry is said to have allocated Rs. 287.5 million to link coops to the one million jobs program by kick-starting 150 mini-factories that would produce cottage handlooms to domestic and international markets. Each proposed factory would receive Rs 19 million before end of this year to kick off operations.

Each factory creating 21 new jobs, a total of 3150 new jobs would be created, serving the government’s one million jobs target. 
Stressing the need for cooperative reforms at national level, the minister said greater emphasis would be on minimising the involvement of the government modernising cooperative laws of Sri Lanka.  (SAA)