Colombo. Tuesday 30 October 2012: Expo Freight (EFL) clinched dual honours at the glittering SLIM Brand Excellence Awards 2012. It won Silver for ‘B2B Brand of the Year’ and Bronze for ‘CSR Brand of the Year’.

Mr. Jagath Pathirane, CEO, Expo Freight (EFL) said, “With very simple beginnings in the freight and logistics industry we are indeed proud today to be a local company which has spread its wings globally to as many as 16 countries. We are elated to be recognised for our efforts in marketing and branding as a B2B-Service company among many other reputed product and service brands. This will no doubt motivate us all to further continue our commitment to this industry”.

Expolanka Freight (EFL), a leader among its peers and known for its Out-of-the-Box thinking commands a global footprint today with a 1200+ staff strength across 16 countries and 45 cities and a strong presence in the Indian sub continent. EFL is a prominent IATA agent in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan and has representation in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the USA.

Its tailor-made flexible solutions, strategic reach and reliability coupled with its multi-modal transportation and logistics with ocean and air transportation have positioned EFL as one of the largest air and ocean freight forwarders, especially in the South Asian region.

Head of Marketing, Corporate Communication & CSR, Expolanka Holdings PLC, Paddy Weerasekera hailed these accolades as an unequivocal endorsement of the Company’s efforts in brand building and its CSR activities. “We’re proud to be recognised for the strength and value of the Expo Freight (EFL) Brand, and, the success of our islandwide CSR efforts. This we attribute to our unmatched brand propositions; the unmatched quality of our service and the creation of greater value by constant investment in process improvements, IT and brand building. Added to this are our constant endeavours through which we make a change in the lives of the people of the community we work in. Our team is both elated and deeply honoured with this national recognition. In fact it inspires us to out-better ourselves in the years to come”, he said.

While engaged in regular handling of perishables, commodities, telecom and medical equipment, project cargo, machinery and pharmaceuticals, the Company primarily focuses on servicing the apparel industry as fashion logistics specialists.

With an unmatched quality of service in Freight and Logistics, it provides an end-to-end supply chain management solution, through understanding and simplifying the customer’s logistics requirements. It also initiated a range of industry-first products enabling customers to get tailor made freight and logistics solutions which are not on the standard menu. Among them are Garments on Hanger, Pick-n-Pack, and its Quality Assurance Centre at which customer can do a check on their products.

The fourteen GSAs Expolanka represents reveals an impressive and long roll-call of top international airlines. This also enables the company to leverage on its pricing strategy and become more competitive.

Parallely Expo Freight (EFL) successfully encompasses all spheres of society in its wide ranging CSR activities. Early this year it led Sri Lanka to join hundreds of millions of people in 5251 cities and towns, in 135 countries and territories across seven continents around the globe to commemorate ‘Earth Hour’.

World Environment Day (WED) was yet another international event commemorated locally with the active participation of school children and other players. Among its other environmentally friend activities were educating students on the issue of Global Warming, an aggressive campaign to save energy and water, recycling waster paper waste and the disposal of e-waste.

In the field of community health development and an extension of brotherhood to northern Sri Lanka in its post-war reunion, Expo Freight (EFL) donated mobile toilets to the North in the form of converted containers with each consisting of eight toilets and two washrooms.

Expo Medix is a Dispensary and Surgery, treating patients for common illnesses. This non-profit operation treats patients with free consultancy and medicines dispensed at cost, in addition to conducting free medical camps on a regular basis.

As part of its wide ranging CSR initiatives were also awareness programmes on the adverse effects of alcohol and smoking, and AIDS awareness.

Photo caption: The award being received by Expo Freight (EFL) team by (from left) Jagath Pathirane, Director/CEO Expo Freight, Saif Yusoof, Director-Expo Freight, Sajeeth Ilyas, Senior Executive CSR - Expolanka Holdings PLC, Paddy Weerasekera, Head of Marketing, Corporate Communications & CSR -  Expolanka Holdings PLC.