This weekend began the first ever boat show held in Sri Lanka. My first thought at the glance of the headline prior to reading the news story this morning was – we are a global company – I wonder if we should be exhibiting here? (I would certainly be happy to go represent Sabre for a few days working those booths in Sri Lanka). Reading this article in the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror, I realized this is less about globalization of the marine industry in challenging economic times and more about developing an industry in a country that has the resources to harbor the rewarding growth of a boat building and marine trade that may not focus on exporting high end yachts to distinguishing clientelle trying to get a boost on production costs by buying overseas, but developing their own market int heir own oceanic backyard. Of course there is a huge market for fishing boats, commerical prodcuts, RIBS, dive and tourist operations! Good for the economic development of the Sri Lankan boat building industry to tap into all of this. We should be paying attantion – they might have a few good ideas.
There is no doubt in these challenging economic times, many industries have been exploring new global markets for production to keep things moving forward. It is not a new story that we have seen a lot of boat building go this way as well from our our yacht companies in the USA. A lot of our owners do comment to me that they feel good about having purchased a US-built boat. I am glad the world of boating is spreading its reaches farther each day to develop new markets – but working for a traditional Maine Built company, I’m glad we still have our deeply rooted history of boat building we are able to carry on here each day.
Blogged by, ~Sarah