Lanka fighting back to sustain exports battle

Sri Lanka is fighting back in a new front to sustain its exports battle. “Not only our producers but also importers at the receiving ports are subjected to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) requirements and as a result, our exports have become more challenging. But we are not going to stay passive or even quiet,” said Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce on March 15.

Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the Lanka Star Awards Ceremony organised by Sri Lanka Institute of Packaging (SLIP) in Colombo. 73 packaging Industry awards –of which 18 were gold- and 9 student awards-of which 2 were gold- were distributed at this glittering event which was facilitated by the Industry and Commerce Ministry.

“We have been seeing more and more innovative packaging solutions that can be re-used for other purposes but “post-consumer packaging” is a big challenge we are faced with both in our domestic market as well as export markets.

That is the issue of “garbage creation” due to the packaging material. Therefore, improvements are needed in this regard. More importantly international packaging requirements are impacting on our exports. Though high quality exports packaging is important for competitive international markets many Lankan export items with “cover packaging” and “non-recyclable packaging” are now faced with increasing challenges abroad.

This is due to the emerging concept of “Extended Producer Responsibility” adopted by many developed countries. Since not only producers but also importers at the receiving ports are subjected to these “EPR requirements”, our exports have become more challenging. However we are not going to stay passive or quiet,” said Minister Bathiudeen.

He said, “Today I am pleased to announce that we have taken a major step to address this EPR requirement which is affecting our exports efficiency. The National Cleaner Production Centre working for my Ministry, is starting a two year programme called “Extended Producer Responsibility” with our private sector and exporters at a cost of $ 10,000 to educate them on this international requirement. NCPC is also assisting us on a programme called “Recovering Resources through Recycling” working with the private sector, which has an overall value of $ 80,000 project which involves both ‘bulk’ as well as ‘retail’ packaging segments.”

Speaking on the Lankan packaging sector vital stats, Minister Bathiudeen said: “International estimates show that global packaging industry is fast growing and will be around $ 820 billion by 2016. It is also a worldwide norm that a country’s packaging industry usually consists of 2 to 3% of its GDP. This shows that our packaging industry could be estimated at more than $ one billion, given that our GDP now surpasses $ 59 billion thanks to the development vision of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Like in any other country, Sri Lanka’s packaging industry too is cross-cutting but we can identify that “food and beverage sector” is the leading segment followed by cosmetics.

Our “per capita packaging expenditure” is lower than Asia’s US$ 10 per capita packaging value.”