Daily FT - 14/03/2015
- Baltic hub & gateway to renew trade, investments
- ‘10 firm strong tourism delegation in April’: Estonian Ambassador Lubi
- ‘Loss of GSP Plus affected our apparel revenues’: Rishad
- ‘Want to invest in tourism, logistics and ICT: Ambassador Lubi
- Also pioneering e-economy
Closely on the heels of last week’s revelation on support for Lanka’s trade issues by Brussel’s powerful EU Trade committee follows the latest open support offer on Lanka’s GSP Plus redux by a steadily growing high-tech EU economy, as revealed on 11 March.
“We closely follow Sri Lankan trade issues with EU as well as all related reports on it. Recovery of GSP Plus can help Sri Lanka greatly! Let us give the new Government a chance and see,” voiced a keen Viljar Lubi (the New Delhi based Ambassador of Estonia to Sri Lanka).
The Delhi based charismatic Ambassador Lubi was addressing Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka Rishad Bathiudeen in Colombo during his first ever courtesy call on Minister Bathiudeen on 11 March afternoon. Joining the session were Dudley Thambinayagam (Consul for the Republic of Estonia in Sri Lanka), Bandula Egodage (Chairman and CEO-EDB) and R.D.S. Kumararatne (DG-Department of Commerce).
On 6 March, Jan Zahradil (the visiting Vice-Chair of EU Committee on International Trade, Member of EU Parliament and also a member of the EU Parliamentary Group ‘Friends of Sri Lanka’) during his crucial meeting with Minister Bathiudeen in Colombo, announced that he would personally engage with EU Committees to solve EU trade issues of Sri Lanka, thereby boosting optimism on speedier GSP Plus redux.
“As an EU member, we are very supportive of speedy resolution of Sri Lanka’s fishery issues and GSP,” said the upbeat Ambassador Lubi, who has experience in private sector insurance as well as in public sector (Finance Ministry) and added: “We closely follow Sri Lankan trade issues with EU as well as all related reports on it. Recovery of GSP Plus can help Sri Lanka greatly! Let us give the new Government a chance and see the changes that will take place. If there is anything that we can do at our end to help Sri Lanka to resolve them, please let me know at once! Our trade with Sri Lanka is non-existent and time to renew it. We are relatively new in Sri Lanka.
“Even in Delhi we established only two years ago. We being a Nordic country, Estonians are interested in touring countries like Sri Lanka. I shall bring a tourism delegation of 10, top level Estonian firms from Estonia to Sri Lanka as early as this April to kick-start! Some of these companies are high end and large scale and members of the reputed Estonian Travel and Tourism Association. We are also interested in partnering in joint ventures with Sri Lanka on steel, tourism, logistics, construction, timber, and agriculture. We invite Minister Bathiudeen to bring a strong trade and business delegation from Sri Lanka for us to renew trade which we believe will encourage our buyers and investors.”
Sri Lankan exporters discovered Estonia relatively recently – after Estonia’s accession to EU in 2004. Sri Lanka’s total bilateral trade with Estonia showed $ 6.38 million in 2014. Lanka’s biggest export to Estonia is activated carbon. Trade balance stands in favour of Sri Lanka. Estonia, the service based economic hub and gateway to Baltic and Scandinavian markets, is an EU member since 2004. With its pioneering e-government and e-citizenship initiatives, it is also considered as an ‘EU Strategic Success’. The world leader in technology integration to its economy and called as an ‘e-economy’ in the world, Estonia is largely a virgin market for Lankan exports-and vice-versa.
“A key element in the 100 Day Program of our Government of President Maithripala Sirisena is exports promotion and recovery of GSP Plus facility from the European Union,” responded Minister Bathiudeen enthusiastically, and added: “Withdrawal of GSP Plus affected our apparels and many firms lost income in the range of million euros. A well-known apparel firm that we know personally alone lost Euro 24 million within a year after the withdrawal! The result is our current apparel export revenues do not show our full, real potential. Recovery of GSP Plus would be a great step forward for our competitive apparel sector and its global image.
“We are highly appreciative of your offer of support and encouragement on our GSP and Fishery issues. We also believe that we should not renew trade without delay. We warmly welcome the Estonian tourism delegation to Sri Lanka. We welcome you to partner with our tourism and other sectors of interest such as ICT, steel, logistics and tourism. I shall instruct my officials to start formulating our delegation as well.”
In 2013, the first ever Estonian trade delegation of 23 members visited Sri Lanka and some logistics partnerships were formed as a result. The proposed delegation to Colombo in April will be the first ever Tourism sector delegation to Sri Lanka. Presently, around 2,000 Estonian tourists visit Sri Lanka annually.
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