The 28th Presidential Export Awards will be held on Tuesday, 8 December at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The ceremony, organised by the Sri Lanka Export Development Board, recognises the country’s best exporters for the 2025/2026 financial year. A total of 117 awards will be presented across two main categories — 15 overall awards and 102 product and service sectoral awards — with merit awards added for qualifying sectors at the judges’ discretion.
Selection is not based on export revenue alone. The EDB said sectoral awards also weigh export market diversification, employment generation, growth in export earnings, repatriation of export earnings to the country, environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility, and value addition.
Judging and partners
EDB Chairman and Chief Executive Mangala Wijesinghe said a large number of applications had been received. Initial evaluation was carried out by a Technical Committee, with winners chosen by a panel of judges headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court. Ernst & Young is the ceremony’s knowledge partner.
The programme was launched by the EDB in 1981, and 27 ceremonies have been held to date. About 1,500 guests are expected in December, including cabinet ministers, diplomats, senior officials and exporters, Lanka Business Online reported from a media briefing at the EDB.
Partner organisations represented at that briefing included the Bank of Ceylon, Commercial Bank, the Sri Lanka Tea Board and the Sri Lanka Export Credit Insurance Corporation. EDB Director General Erandika Dissanayake also attended.
Winners receive a trophy and certificate, and may use the Presidential Export Awards logo as a marketing tool for three years.
The EDB framed the awards against the government’s export expansion strategy, saying initiatives in market and product diversification, innovation, value addition and regional value chains are central to its targets.
A note on sourcing
The Daily FT and Lanka Business Online accounts both derive from the same EDB media briefing and are near-identical in substance. They are two outlets carrying one statement, not two independent confirmations.
