Days pass by… May father build an empire

Orders for shark fin exports grew day by day. My father was soon became the largest shark fin exporter in the country. He exported to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China and many more countries.

My father by nature is someone who is looking for new opportunities all the time. He was not someone who can be satisfied with the current position. He always looked at the bigger picture. But he always liked the fair play in the trade and did not like to stab anyone on the back in achieving success.

Early 90’s saw another turn in the seafood exports industry. This was the time when prawn culture was developing in Sri Lanka. Multinational organizations such as Carsons Cumberbatch, Unilever were the pioneers in the prawn culture. With the little experience my father had in the seafood exports at that time he was able to understand the potential of the prawn culture in the coming years.

He wanted to venture into prawn culture. He knew that he would need a partner if he was to enter into this trade. He went in search of foreign buyers. His efforts paid off. He found a Japanese partner by the name Mr. Hishasi Yanase. This meeting made a drastic turnaround in our lives.
If I were to look back at the past if this meeting wouldn’t have happened, things would have been quite different. Thus I feel it is important that I spend some time on explaining about who Mr. Yanase is and how this meeting occurred…