The purpose of the trip was to gather and present the best practices, business propositions and lessons learned from Sri Lanka's experience to authorities in Ben Tre, one of Prosperity Initiative's main partner provinces in Viet Nam.

The trip also served to establish connections between leading companies in Sri Lanka and Ben Tre vis a vis possible joint ventures, strategic alliances and other investment opportunities. The opportunity for Sri Lankan firms was presented as a raw material-driven expansion strategy.

Ben Tre is Vietnam's leading producer of coconuts and coconut products. Compared to Ben Tre, which exports approximately 200 million whole fresh nuts from its 300 million annual harvest, Sri Lanka exports only 70 million whole fresh nuts annually of its 2.5 billion.

Members of the Sector Feasibility Team visited Sri Lanka's leading producers, exporters and researchers for coconut products. The selected companies were global market leaders in high end products. Particular technology and products the Team looked at included one of the world's largest virgin coconut oil producers, the market leader in activated carbon, the market leader for woven coir fiber products, one of the largest pith substrate manufacturers and several leading milk and juiced producers. Very few of the integrated profitable companies were active in desiccated coconut and coconut kernels.

Each of the leading companies has been actively seeking off-shore expansion opportunities since Sri Lanka's Plantations Ministry has no current plans for expansion of coconut forests. The companies recognise that competing for a fixed number of whole fresh coconuts will simply increase the raw material costs and erode margins. The companies are looking forward to opening substantive discussions with Ben Tre to investigate the investment environment and conduct due diligence.