By Easwaran Rutnam
The future of Sri Lanka’s European Union (EU) GSP+ will be on the line with an EU team set to arrive this month to assess Sri Lanka’s compliance with the conditions under which the trade benefit is granted.
Deputy Head of the Political Section of the Delegation of the EU to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Anne Vaugier Chatterjee told The Sunday Morning that a GSP+ Monitoring Mission will be in Sri Lanka during the last week of August.
Ahead of the visit, the Ambassador-designate of Sri Lanka to the EU Grace Asirwatham had discussed details on the visit of the GSP+ Monitoring Mission to Sri Lanka with European Commission Head of the South and South East Asia Division of the Directorate General of Trade (DG Trade) Peter Berz.
Ambassador Asirwatham discussed Sri Lanka’s desire to further expand bilateral trade with the EU and to increase the utilisation level of the GSP+ facility granted to Sri Lankan exporters.
The Foreign Ministry said they also discussed the agenda for the forthcoming meeting of the EU-Sri Lanka Working Group on Trade and Economic Relations Co-operation.
Sri Lanka had committed to comply with 27 conventions related to human rights and labour rights in order to be eligible for the EU GSP+ trade facility.
However, in recent times, Sri Lanka has been found to have failed to fully comply with the recommendations.