No other province in Sri Lanka has resources like the resources in the Northern Province. But the bitter truth is that we have not even touched many of the resources in our province. We only want to continue what we are doing but we are failing to prepare ourselves for changes, said Hon. Governor of the Northern Province, N. Vethanayahan.
The World Entrepreneurs’ Day event and Industrial Exhibition organized by the students of the Business Linkage Cell in collaboration with the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management students of University of Vavuniya was held at the University of Vavuniya today, Monday morning (25.08.2025).
The Governor, who attended the event as the Chief Guest, inaugurated the industrial exhibition. After that, stage events were held.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Vavuniya, Senior Professor A. Arputharaja, stated that the starting point for such an event was laid in a meeting with Hon. Governor at the Northern Provincial Governor’s office a few months ago, and that the event was organized based on his advice to benefit entrepreneurs in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
In his chief guest speech, the Governor said, “I have served as the District Secretary in 4 districts in the North. Among the districts I have served, Mullaitivu is the district with the most resources. But it is also the district with the highest poverty. This shows that we have not utilized our resources properly.
In our time, the relationship between universities and communities was not very strong. But today, this has changed. Universities are now working to understand and address the needs of the community. I commend Vice Chancellor Arputharaja for doing an excellent job in this regard.
Why shouldn’t we change our people? We too must transform into a first-class province in Sri Lanka, one that contributes the most to the national economy. The time has come to lay the foundations for this. We must seize this opportunity to give our people what they rightfully deserve. Failing to do so would be a betrayal of our own community.
At the end of the war, there were only one or two entrepreneurs in our province. Today, it has increased. Their production results were not good then. But today they are good. This needs to be expanded further. Especially, we need to produce value-added products from our strong agriculture and marine resources.
This is exactly what I asked the Thai Ambassador when he met me recently. Thailand has successfully transformed all its products into value-added products. Similarly, in our neighboring India, palm tree resources are being converted into value-added products with a wide range of outcomes. Yet, despite having abundant palm resources, we are still lagging behind in turning them into value-added products.
May such events and discussions pave the way for our province to become self-sufficient in the future. Likewise, I hope that the university students studying here today will choose self-employment when they step out tomorrow,” the Governor said in his speech.
