Ninety fourth International Co-operative Day will be celebrated today (2nd July) at Nelum Pokuna theatre under the patronage of the President Maithripala Sirisena.
The International Co-operative Day is an annual celebration of the co-operative movement observed on the first Saturday in July since 1923 by the International Co-operative Alliance. On 16th December in 1992, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed in resolution 47/90 "the first Saturday of July 1995 to be International Day of Cooperatives, marking the centenary of the establishment of the International Cooperative Alliance."
The co-operative movement is successfully running in the developed countries such as Canada, Israel, Singapore, and UK. In Sri Lanka this movement is implemented in all nine provinces with 54 national level assemblies, and island-wide 14,454 assemblies. The movement in Sri Lanka is a giant one, which has assessments worth Rs.275 bn, deposits worth Rs.154 bn, with about 46,000 employees and over 8 million members.