A family enterprise since 1948

The company’s story begins in 1948. According to company history, Gnanam Paul Rasiyah had become Sri Lanka’s largest trader in fabrics and gold. His outlook reached far beyond the island. With his wife, Mary Annette Chinniah, he travelled through Japan, Hong Kong, China, Malaya, France, Italy and the United Kingdom — studying markets, meeting suppliers and looking for the next opportunity.

Gnanam developed the enterprise around the strengths of the traditional trading house: recognising demand, understanding supply, maintaining trust and connecting customers with products from across the world.

Mary Annette stood beside him as co-founder and family matriarch. Together, they established more than a business. They formed a tradition of enterprise, independence, international curiosity and stewardship.

The principles of those early years continue to define the company:

• Integrity in commerce

• Relationships built for the long term

• The confidence to enter new industries

• An international outlook

• Responsibility to the generation that follows

More than seventy-five years later, the company still bears its founder’s name.

As Managing Director, Chandra Paul Rasiyah led the company through an important period of diversification. Building on its trading foundations, he expanded the enterprise into agriculture, including the importation and supply of seed potatoes.

The company also developed coconut-fibre exports, connecting a traditional Sri Lankan agricultural industry with overseas markets. Its move into furniture manufacturing added direct experience in production and value addition.

This era demonstrated a trait that would continue throughout the company’s history: G. Paul Rasiyah & Sons would not be confined to a single industry. Agriculture, exports, manufacturing and trade became a broader platform for the transformation that followed.

Era achievements:

• Agricultural trade and seed-potato imports

• Coconut-fibre exports

• Furniture manufacturing

• Wider experience in production and value addition

In 1982, Nagendra Paul Rasiyah led one of the most important changes in the company’s history: its expansion into industrial technology and industrial raw-material supply.

Sri Lankan manufacturers were becoming more technically sophisticated, yet access to specialist polymer technologies and international materials remained limited. The company developed capabilities across polyurethane, synthetic rubber, plastics, industrial adhesives, specialty chemicals and polymer technologies.

Polyurethane became especially important. The company’s role moved beyond conventional importing. It became a bridge between international producers, technical knowledge and Sri Lankan manufacturing — helping customers gain access to materials that could support new products and processes.

This era established the industrial identity that remains central to GPR Industrial Solutions today.

Era achievements:

• Entry into industrial raw-material supply

• Development of polyurethane capabilities

• Expansion into synthetic rubber, plastics and adhesives

• Connection of international technology with local manufacturing

In 1990, Jayendra Paul Rasiyah assumed leadership as Managing Director. He continued the industrial legacy and strengthened the company’s specialist position within Sri Lankan industry.

His tenure placed particular emphasis on relationships that could endure. The company developed and strengthened ties with major Japanese chemical and materials manufacturers. These relationships connected Sri Lankan manufacturers with advanced polymer, elastomer and specialty-chemical industries.

Jayendra’s stewardship reinforced a commercial philosophy present from the beginning: great trading relationships are measured in decades, not individual transactions.

Era achievements:

• Consolidation as a specialist industrial supplier

• Deeper international principal relationships

• Stronger connections to Japanese materials and chemical technology

• Continued emphasis on reputation, continuity and long-term trade

Wife of the late Jayendra Paul Rasiyah and mother of Julian Paul Rasiyah.

In 2016, Julian Paul Rasiyah, grandson of Gnanam Paul Rasiyah and Mary Annette Chinniah, assumed leadership of the family enterprise.

He inherited nearly seven decades of accumulated commercial experience: the founders’ trading instinct, the expansion into agriculture and manufacturing, the industrial transformation and the international relationships strengthened under his father.

The task of the present era is not only to preserve that inheritance, but to decide what it can become. The strategy is centred on four principles:

• Integration

• Value addition

• Internationalisation

• Building Sri Lankan enterprise

The industrial business continues through GPR Industrial Solutions. The group’s renewed agricultural capability is being developed through GPR Plantation Management Services. Vascora creates routes for finished food, bedding and growth-media products into the United States and Canada.

Together, these activities move the group towards a more integrated model — from land and production to value addition, brands, distribution and world markets.