SL anti-dumping legislation ready for Parliament
Sri Lanka’s Attorney General has given the green light for Sri Lanka’s draft Anti-Dumping Bill to be submitted to Parliament, laying to rest fears entertained by local manufacturers regarding the impacts from the country’s many FTAs as the possibility of an imports dump will be prevented once the law comes into operation.
At the 26th AGM of Industry Association of Sri Lanka (IASL) attended by Minister of Industry and Commerce, Rishad Bathiudeen; Chairman of IASL, Dinesh Dharmadasa; Assistant Secretary General of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Rohan Casiechetty; Vice Chairman of IASL, Bandula Egodage and the Immediate Past Chairman of IASL, Nilam Jayasinghe, Bathiudeen said that the draft Anti-Dumping Bill was ready to be submitted to Parliament.
“Industries operate in challenging environments, but with the help of Government Agencies including the Ministry of Trade, some of these have been overcome. FTA’s 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 FTA’s 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,” Dharmadasa said.
“Our industries appear to be worried about impacts of FTAs and dumping. 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,” Bathiudeen responded
Chairman IASL Dharmadasa and other members immediately praised Minister Bathiudeen on the speedy progress of Sri Lanka’s Anti-Dumping framework.
In 2016 Bathiudeen together with the Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade, Malik Samarawickrama submitted a Cabinet proposal to draft an anti-dumping law for Sri Lanka with the aim of mitigating unfair trade practices, which was given Cabinet approval. Now with the Attorney General having approved the draft all that remains is for the bill to be submitted to Parliament and after securing a Parliamentary majority, ratified as law.
OSL TAKE:
Ensuring protection against unfair trade practices for entrepreneurs conducting business in Sri Lanka with guaranteed measures of assurance regarding an import dump that can threaten their business would be encouraging to businesses.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/03102017/Z_5 |