Sri Lanka is hopeful to regain the European Union’s trade concession GSP Plus Status, which is supposed to balance out the effects of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. At the inaugural ceremony of the annual event, ‘Ransalu Textile Expo’ in Colombo, Rishad Bathiudeen Sri Lanka’s Industry and Commerce Minister said, “We are inaugurating this (Ransalu Textile Expo) textile event at a time when our world-class apparel industry is becoming increasingly hopeful on regaining the GSP PLUS facility. There are concerns in trade sectors across the world that Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement could have a negative impact.”
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Rishad Bathiudeen further pointed out that the Sri Lankan Government under the guidance of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is making efforts to position Sri Lanka among the top 10 high-quality apparel manufacturing countries in the world by 2020.
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Sri Lanka’s apparel industry has set a new export target of US $ 10 billion by 2025 and the Government supports it. In 2014, Sri Lanka’s apparel export values summed up to US $ 4.9 billion. The country lost the GSP Plus status in 2010 due to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) alleging violations of Human Rights during the civil war. But the new Sri Lankan Government started demanding the regain of GSP plus status owing to fall in country’s apparel export.
