Sri Lanka'S Ready-Made Garments Will No Longer Be Tax-Free.

The clothing industry in Sri Lanka said that the preferential tariff treatment for export and sale of the European Union's clothing loss and the generalized preferential tariff special preferential treatment scheme (GSP+) would be affected, but not to cause disaster.

The Sri Lankan government has categorically rejected it.

However, in fact, Sri Lanka has been around July 10th.

Since 2005, the European Union's GSP+ program has granted Sri Lanka garments products a preferential tariff free entry into the EU market.

Under the GSP+ concession scheme, the annual benefit from Sri Lanka is estimated at about $150 million.

The Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) chairman A Sukumaran recently said to the media that "the loss of Sri Lanka's application of GSP+ scheme is a loss, but it will not be a disastrous loss".

Sukumaran president said, "this is because the clothing exported to the world is only about 1/3 of the total exports of the European Union using the EU GSP+ program.

Nearly 50% of the garments exported to the European Union are exported to the European Union, of which about 2/3 use the GSP+ plan ". Therefore, only about 1/3 of garment exports will be affected by the loss of GSP+ tariff free treatment. This loss will not cause disaster to the garment industry in Sri Lanka."

JAAF, who represents Sri Lanka's garment industry, also said that the EU has changed the rules of application of the GSP+ program, forcing the Sri Lankan government to respond to the refusal to accept EU conditions.

"We thought the EU was willing to let us apply the GSP+ plan.

But looking at their recent letters and the conditions they put forward, they seem to be changing the applicable rules.

Therefore, I believe that any government will reject the terms of the EU.

However, the garment industry, the biggest beneficiary of the EU's GSP+ programme, said it would still require the government to continue its dialogue with the European Union on the GSP+ plan.

Affected by the economic recession in western countries and the loss of GSP+ programme qualifications,

The conditions of "violation of state sovereignty"

Sri Lanka's Ministry of foreign affairs and the Ministry of public information revealed to the media that the European Union recently proposed the conditions for the eligibility of the GSP+ scheme, no longer related to trade, but a violation of state sovereignty, and therefore could not accept the conditions proposed by the European Union.

The EU executive committee said that if Sri Lanka agreed to implement the 15 international agreements on human rights, labor rights and environmental standards, it will extend its GSP+ program for 6 months.

In these Provisions, the EU executive committee hopes that the government of Sri Lanka will abolish the existing emergency regulations, the Public Security Ordinance and the prevention of Terrorism Law.

Because the 30 year civil war and terrorist activities in Sri Lanka have not been completely subsided, the Sri Lankan government believes that these Provisions relate to national security and not to foreign governments.

Sri Lanka foreign minister GL Peiris said in a press conference recently, "we can not make concessions on the issue of highly sensitive topics concerning the well-being of the country."

The Sri Lankan government said that other terms proposed by the EU executive committee were also considered to be political, not related to trade, but equally unacceptable.