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| Saturday, 16 October 2004 |
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by Anjana Gamage The Development Committee of the European Parliament has indicated its keen interest on strengthening Sri Lanka's access to the EU market, when they met the Sri Lankan delegation led by Minister of Investment Promotion, Industry and Tourism Anura Bandaranaike in Brussels recently. According to Ministry sources, the Development Committee of the European Parliament is designing a new General Scheme of Preferences (GSP) for another 10 year period from 2006 to 2015. Minister Bandaranaike during his address to the Development Committee of the European Parliament had stated that the tariff preferences of the EU have historically benefited the larger economies of the developing world. However he has also pointed out to the EU that with the lapse of Multi Fibre Agreement (MFA) at the end of 2004 it is now time for the EU to target its new revision to the GSP towards the smaller and more vulnerable economies that need relief due to the lapse of the quota system. The Minister also met the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Philippe Maystadt. Sri Lanka signed an MoU with the EIB in 2001 and Maystadt, a former Belgian Finance Minister has expressed his satisfaction with the disbursement of the initial credit line of Euro 40 million which is administered by Sri Lanka's DFCC Bank. He has affirmed that once the present credit line was fully disbursed he would favourably consider increasing the level of financing as well. Projects of mutual interest were also discussed, including a Special Economic Zone for European SMEs. The EIB has a total of Euro 45 billion to invest in 2005, making it substantially larger than the World Bank in terms of lending capabilities. The delegation was hosted and coordinated by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Brussels. |
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