Productivity promotion in Sri Lanka was emphasized in 1966, after Sri Lanka got the Membership of Asian Productivity Organization. Hon. Dudly Senanayake, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka signed the agreement on behalf of the Sri Lanka government at that time.

Having being a member of the Asian Productivity Organization, Sri Lanka established management development & productivity center under the Ministry of industries in 1968. In order to disseminate productivity knowledge through out the Island, aforesaid management development & productivity unit was converted as National Institute of Management (NIM). Later, NIM was reformed as NIBM (National Institute of Business Management).

The scope of the NIBM was widened to various fields such as Marketing, IT etc. In 1994, the Ministry of Industries felt the need of strengthening of National Productivity Organization in Sri Lanka. Hence, separate unit was formed and it was called as National Productivity Secretariat (NPS).