Minister Bathiudeen meets Iraqi Ambassador

Embassy of Iraq in Colombo Assistant Commercial Attache Ahmed Abdulaali Al-Rikabi, Embassy of Iraq in Colombo First Secretary Yassir K Chassab, Ambassador of Iraq to Sri Lanka Khatan Taha Khalaf and Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen.

Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen reiterated his keenness on the proposed Iraq-Sri Lanka trading centre in Baghdad. Minister Bathiudeen expressed his interest when Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Kahtan Taha Khalaf, met the Minister last week at the Ministry offices.

Until 1990 Sri Lanka was the major supplier of tea to Iraq with 65 percent of the total annual intake of tea by Iraq. Currently, more than 90 percent of Sri Lanka exports to Iraq consist of tea but the Sri Lanka-Iraq tea trade is beset by allegations by some tea export companies of adulteration and mislabelling at transshipment points while en route to Iraq.

Both Iraq and Sri Lanka now believe that establishing a direct Sri Lanka tea export channel to Iraq and also launching a Sri Lanka trading centre in Baghdad to sell Sri Lanka products will help solve these issues while promoting trade cooperation as well. “I believe that three issues could be directly addressed by the proposed trading centre. The first issue is the Iraqi market’s yearning for high quality Ceylon tea.

Secondly the issue of Iraqi consumers receiving low quality tea instead of the high quality tea sent from Colombo. Third, the issue of falling tea export revenues from Iraq for our tea export firms,” the Minister said. Also present with the Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to Sri Lanka Kahtan Taha Khalaf were Embassy of Iraq in Colombo Asst Commercial Attache Ahmed Abdulaali Al-Rikabi and Embassy of Iraq in Colombo First Secretary Yassir K Chassab.