Upali Wijewardene
Sri Lanka’s first millionaire if alive!
Is there anyone in Sri Lanka among the first few millionaires in the world? No. There is no one in Sri Lanka even among the first ten thousand. But if Upali Wijewardene were alive today he would most likely be among the top ten millionaires in the world.
Somehow Upali Wijewardene who was the first millionaire in Sri Lanka at that time disappeared 33 years ago. Although there are various opinions about this disappearance, some say that this is an intrigue carried out by business enemies.
Upali Wijewardene started making cars in Sri Lanka in the 1970s. So the first car to be built was called the UMC Mazda.
Somehow 500 Mazda cars have been produced in the first round. These cars were beautifully painted white and red. Upali Wijewardene has taken steps to offer one of these cars to the Kelaniya Temple before selling these cars. The first buyer of this car after that was a businessman named Lawrence.
He had bought this car at that time for Rs. 29,000. Since then these cars have been used by many powerful figures in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, President J. R. Jayawardena, Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera, Dr. G. M. Attygalle, U. N. Gunasekera, George Gomez, Mervyn Perera and Dr. Seevali Ratwatte.
Upali Wijewardene has used two of these cars. . The registration numbers of these cars were 5 Sri 9115 and 6 Sri 9999. Somehow one of these cars was painted gold and the upper part was painted dark brown. . These cars are already in Upali Wijewardene’s bungalow in Nuwara Eliya. Somehow an old Mazda car owned by Dharmasena Athupattu has been donated to the Gangarama Vihara recently. If Mr. Upali Wijewardene was present today, it would have been a great help to the Sri Lankan economy.
Also, I could proudly say that the Mazda car you ride is made in our country for people from other countries. But if Upali Wijewardene were alive today he would be one of the first millionaires in the world not just because he built this Mazda car. Upali Wijewardene owned a number of large businesses spread across the country and around the world. It is no secret that the loss of Upali Wijewardene is a great loss to the country.
This used to be Made in Sr lanka
Everyone knows that Upali Wijewardene is the owner of Delta Toffee and Candos Chocolate.
The first business is making sugar balls. He brings the sugar ball making machine that Dad left behind and starts making sugar balls. First made by hand.
Upali Wijewardene started a business distributing watches, radios and TVs in Sri Lanka. The brand “UNIC” was created for the products distributed in this manner.
He built the first auto and electronics assembly plant in Asia. At that time other countries in Asia did not even think of doing that.
Upali Fiat Upali Mazda is a car made in Sri Lanka. A little pride came to mind, didn’t it?
The first two assembled cars were given to Dudley Senanayake and the Kelaniya Temple.
Upali has assembled 500 Fiat cars in Sri Lanka. 499 of them are the original white and the other is the car in the photo below! The reason for its gold color is that Mr. Upali Wijewardene made it for his own use.
Upali Mazda made it a luxury car. The price of one is Rs. 90,000 / =. They also export those cars which are very popular in Sri Lanka
It had been planned.
He also started Upali Aviation. This is the first domestic airline and helicopter service company in Sri Lanka.
As soon as Candos Chocolate is successful, the Upali Group will start producing ‘Consumer Goods’. The three soaps “Venus”, “Crystal” and “Tingle” are made from it.
Also, Upali Newspapers, which was established in 1981, enters the field of journalism by printing ‘Divaina’ and ‘Island’ newspapers.
But in the meanwhile in 1970 the SLFP joined the LSSP
As soon as he came to power with the Communist Party, all those factories were closed and the workers orphaned under the theme that the capitalists should not be allowed to exploit the labor of our workers.
Due to Sri Lanka’s socialist economic policies, he soon became involved in international business, owning a cocoa plantation in Malaysia, a finance company in New York and a number of businesses throughout Singapore.
At the height of the Upali Group’s success, the company had more than 33,000 employees worldwide. This number of employees is comparable to that of the largest companies in the world today.
On February 13, 1983, his famous Learjet jet went missing near the Straits of Malacca.
To this day it remains an unsolved mystery!
There are even rumors that he still lives in a foreign country. Others say he was imprisoned.
However,
If Upali Wijewardene were alive today, there is no doubt that Steve Jobs would be richer than Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.