Apparel manufacturers within the 14 investment promotion zones including Katunayake, Biyagama, Meerigama, Pallekelle, etc, in Sri Lanka will request President Gotabaya Rajapaksa soon to declare a National Policy Framework for the apparel industry in the backdrop of the COVID-19 which has affected their operations.

However, as a prelude to the meeting, these manufacturers met Minister of Industrial Exports, Investment Promotion, Tourism and Aviation Prasanna Ranatunga to deliberate matters related to exemption of the EPF and the ETF for a period of three months in the light of the cancellation of export orders by their buyers and the insurmountable losses that these employers have gone through in the last few months on account of COVID 19.

The minister had requested all 14 zonal directors to bring with them written submissions on all respective zones on how many factories within the individual zones were closed, if any have been closed at all, and how many of them have been reopened, how many factories have adopted their prescribed health precautions.

These 14 zones have 286 factories within them which employ 187,000 employees. These factories have closed on March 19 and reopened on May 11. Around 50 per cent of these factories manufacture apparel for export.