Sri Lankan industries have been assured that the FTAs being mooted will not affect them -nor will result in an imports dump that the domestic manufacturers are fearful of. In fact, the much sought after anti-dumping legislation has been cleared by the Attorney General and is ready to head to the legislature.
โWe are planning to present the draft Anti-Dumping Bill to the Parliamentโ said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen on 27 September in Colombo. Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the 26th AGM of Industry Association of Sri Lanka (IASL) at Cinnamon Grand on the evening of 27 September. Joining the event were Chairman of IASL Dinesh Dharmadasa, Assistant Secretary General of Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Rohan Casiechetty, Vice Chairman IASL Bandula Egodage and the Immediate Past Chairman IASL Nilam Jayasinghe.
โIndustries operate in challenging environments, but with the help of Government Agencies including the Ministry of Trade, some of these have been overcomeโ said Chairman IASL Dinesh Dharmadasa and added: โFTAโs to be signed by Sri Lanka could bring forth numerous new challenges. We thank the Government for starting a dialogue with the industries and hope these dialogues will continue to facilitate viable operations of Sri Lankan Industries once the FTAโs are signed and open up new opportunities for our members. We like to mention that any further liberation of trade must be done after few basic safeguards like Anti-Dumping legislation and lowering of duties of raw materials for local manufacture of finished products.โ
Responding to IASL Chairman IASL Dinesh Dharmadasa Minister Bathiudeen said: โOur industries appear to be worried about impacts of FTAs and dumping.ย The unity government will not enter into such agreements without consulting local industries and without protecting them first. I am also pleased to say that we are looking at new steps on anti-dumping and my officials are studying issues on this. The Department of Commerce is a key institution working in this regard. In fact we are planning to present the draft Anti-Dumping Bill to the Parliament in the coming two-three weeks. The policy of the unity government of HE President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is to support development of industries.โ
Chairman IASL Dharmadasa and other members immediately praised Minister Bathiudeen on the speedy progress of Sri Lankaโs Anti-Dumping framework.
Last year, Minister Bathiudeen, joining the Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama proposed the Anti-Dumping legislation to the Cabinet and received the go-ahead to proceed. Being cleared by the AG, the bill is now being translated to be presented to the Parliament.
The key focus of this Anti-Dumping bill is to counter unfair trade practices.
Leader of All Ceylon Makkal Congress