Fed: Aust firms making money, helping rebuild lives

AAP General News (Australia)
08-22-2005
Fed: Aust firms making money, helping rebuild lives

By Shane Wright, Economics Correspondent

CANBERRA, Aug 22 AAP - Australian firms are learning that making money and being compassionate
aren't mutually exclusive as they seek to rebuild tsunami-ravaged parts of Sri Lanka and
Banda Aceh.

A range of firms have trudged through Banda Aceh and Sri Lanka, looking at the destruction
wrought by the December 26 disaster, and coming up with ways to both help survivors as
well as their own bottom lines.

Almost 300,000 people died in the tsunami that washed across the Indian Ocean, while
almost 1.2 million more were displaced in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives
and India.

Lives were swept away. So too were homes, factories, schools and roads - the very necessities
of communities everywhere.

An Australian Trade Commission-organised mission to both countries has just returned,
with around 14 firms looking at ways they can rebuild the two nations.

Allan Webster and his wife Libby run the Funktion (Funktion) Enterprises business out
of the small regional Victorian town of Toolorook.

One of their specialities is buildings that can be effectively sent overseas in a shipping
container.

Their buildings are being used by sexual disease experts in remote parts of Papua New
Guinea - now they are hopeful of putting similar buildings into Sri Lanka and Banda Aceh.

Mr Webster says he was emotionally overwhelmed by what he saw in Banda Aceh.

"If you don't feel like you've got to do something when you see Banda Aceh, you just
don't have a heart," he told AAP.

"But at the same time, you can have compassion and also make a quid."

Among the firms that have visited both tsunami-hit areas, construction companies have
been prominent.

That's largely due to the pressing problems in both regions where not only have homes
been swept away, but also the people who may have been in a position to re-build them.

Queensland firm Easybuild Australia is already on the ground in Sri Lanka, providing
homes to the tens of thousands of people left without shelter following the tsunami.

It has set up a licensee in Colombo whose factory hopes to churn out 600 ready-built
homes by the end of the year. Some will go to Galle, others into the war-torn north.

Unlike the traditional brick-and-mortar house, Easybuild homes are polystyrene buildings
that come with doors, windows and electrical connections built in.

Company founder Ric Berenger said non-government organisations hoping to build 1,000
homes had run into problems because it was almost impossible to construct those sorts
of buildings in the traditional manner.

He said his company's system would deliver the homes quickly, while at the same time
add to the firm's bottom line.

"What we really only need is a slab, and the house can go up," he told AAP.

"I've walked around these places, talking to people who are sick of getting their photo
taken. They just want a house to live in."

Mr Webster said companies on the trade mission were now working together. The connections
had been made in Banda Aceh and Sri Lanka.

"It's like one FTA (free trade agreement), with the connections we've made which hopefully
will have dividends in the long run," he said.

Other firms now looking at possible work in both countries include PSA Project Management,
Blackwoods and Ikan Building Systems.

Austrade's Sri-Lankan based senior trade commissioner Mirantha Perera said firms that
thought they could make a quick buck would be disappointed.

But for those willing to put in an effort on reconstruction, the long term benefits
could be very large.

"There is the opportunity to, because Sri Lanka is a lower cost country, to work on
the commercial side after the reconstruction work," he told AAP from Colombo.

"From there they can also export into the Middle East or Europe.

"So long term, this can help those businesses that aren't just here to make an easy dollar."

AAP sw/so/jo/jlw

KEYWORD: TSUNAMI BUILD

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