Diyanath Rohan Jayasinghe, Chairman of the state-owned Cey-Nor Foundation which builds fishing boats, told LBO he believes the boat industry can be bigger than the island's garment industry, one of its main foreign exchange earners.

"Our labour costs are comparatively cheaper and our people are very skilled in technology. It's time we took advantage of that situation."

Organizers say fishing, tourism, exports, furniture, refrigeration, fishing gear, electronics, boat accessories, transport, alternate energy, and water sports sectors could benefit from the development of the local boat building industry.

The show, organized by the Boat Building Technology Institute (BTI) in association with the Export Development Board (EDB) will take place in Colombo from 8th to 10th June 2008.

According to organizers, 80 percent of the display booths have already been reserved by local and international boat builders and suppliers.

The EDB says leading importers, manufacturers and suppliers from Norway, Germany, Italy, India, Australia, Maldives, Spain and France will be visiting the show.

According to EDB statistics, exports earned the local boat building industry 4,085 million rupees last year, up from 795 million rupees in 2006.

Around 50 boat builders are in operation in Sri Lanka and 10 of them have already begun exporting boats to European and neighboring countries, the show's organizers said.

A big local boat builder, Neil Marine, has also won export orders for naval craft.

"Currently we are manufacturing fifteen 36-foot fast offshore vessels for the Maldivian police and 12 fast rescue craft for a regional navy," Neil Fernando, Chairman, Neil Marine told LBO.

"We also export leisure type craft to the Dutch market."

Cey-Nor Foundation of the Ministry of Fisheries is also building pleasure craft for a manufacturer who supplies Norway.

"We have been subcontracting to a manufacturer who is exporting to Norway," Jayasinghe of Cey-Nor told LBO.

"We exported about 100 pleasure boats since last year and earned around 100,000 US dollars," he said

The foundation has already inked a deal for a joint venture with a Bangladeshi company with an initial investment of 80,000 US dollars to build fiber glass boats in Bangladesh.

"There is lot of opportunity in Bangladesh because they still build boats with wood. We are going to manufacture fishing boats," he said.

Jayasinghe said the boat show is important as it could lead to more joint ventures for his foundation to build boats for global markets.