Riding high on successful public-private partnerships and conducive regulations by the government, 2013 was a historical year for the apparel industry of Sri Lanka. This was stated by Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) Deputy Chairman Noel Piyathilaka adding that the challenge now was not to sustain the momentum and realise the targets set by the President to achieve 10 billion dollars (over 60,000 crores) by 2016 and to be among the top 10 apparel export countries of the world by 2020.
Speaking at the 10th Annual General Meeting of the forum, Piyathilaka presiding Azeem Ismail noted that the time had come to explore all possibilities. He acknowledged the government’s support through the introduction of regulation on anti-competitive trade practices and direction for shipping service providers to issue a bill lading clearly indicating whether the consignment is freight collect or freight pre-paid, among others. He also stated the government is proposing to establish a merchant shipping authority in keeping with the development of the maritime industry to harness the maritime hub potential.
Drawing the attention of Chief Guest of the evening Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera to a few remaining issues that require solutions, Piyathilaka asserted that by addressing the issues related to e-commerce, SVAT and international market penetration, the industry, along with many others, would benefit even more and hence would be able to deliver a higher contribution. When this is done, the total reform agenda would be complete.
Piyathilaka stated that if not for the introduction of the suspended VAT scheme, the apparel industry could not have been able to perform due to complexities attributed to the VAT administration system, including refund mechanism and double digit rate. What is needed for economic growth, therefore, is a transparent, single digit VAT system. However, despite the presence of the SVAT system, further reforms are recommended in the larger interest of the economy, he added.
In fact, JAAF believes that with the completed reform agenda supported by international market penetration activities, in particular the conclusion of China-Sri Lanka FTA and other targeted non-traditional markets, Sri Lanka will rank among the best sourcing countries in this part of the world. In his remarks Chief Guest Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera pointed out it seems like everyone wants a piece of Sri Lanka. While one party claims Sri Lanka to be a tea nation and another a cinnamon nation. However, he expressed that Sri Lanka was neither one nor the other, but an ‘apparel nation’.
Jaafsl.com
