Lanka sure of GSP+, says BOI Chief

Sandasen MARASINGHE

Board of Investment (BOI) Chairman Dhammika Perera said that Sri Lanka would get the GSP+ facility without being suspended and assured that the Government was in a position to afford it even if the facility was suspended.

Stating that there were 186 factories of European countries in Sri Lanka, the BOI Chairman said if GSP+ would be suspended the most affected are these European companies that invested in Sri Lanka and most probably they would not attempt to affect their own companies. He was speaking at the weekly Cabinet press briefing at the Information Department.

Denying the statement by Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe that more than 300,000 working in factories under the BOI would lose their jobs, Perera referring to statistics said the loss could be nearly 20,000 in case GSP+ was not given. But still there were more than 10,000 vacancies in factories. The employers were waiting to recruit experienced labour, he said.

Perera referring to the increase of exports from 2001 to 2004 when GSP + facility was not granted, said there was an increase of US$ 536 million in export earnings. “We received the GSP+ facility in 2005 one year early due to the Tsunami catastrophe. The increase of the export until 2007 during when the GSP+ facility existed was US$ 709 million.” He pointed out the loss incurred on the increase would be around US$ 200 million if the GSP+ facility was suspended.

Chairman Perera said the total value of exports of the BOI approved factories was around US$ 5,000 million and the number of employees was 500,000. According to statistics the decrease of US$ 200 million would affect only on 20,000 job opportunities.

Still there are more than 10,000 vacancies in factories under the BOI and the real loss should be calculated as 10,000 opportunities which is considerably small than that is pointed out by the Opposition. The Government can afford it, he said. Mass Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said most factories were well established and technology well developed and there was no need to leave the country.

“Certain types of fabric for many garment factories were produced only in Sri Lanka and they would have to buy the fabric from us even if they had to leave the country.

At various, occasions certain factories were requested to come to Bangladesh and other countries in the region but they refused and were reluctant of leaving behind the experienced labour and the good conditions. So the future seemed to be promising for BOI factories even without the GSP+ facility, he said.

Minister Yapa said all these problems arose as a result of the Government in defeating terrorism and queried whether we could compromise the second freedom we achieved by defeating the ruthless terrorism for the GSP+ facility.