Huge 360% growth in Lanka’s Asia Pacific trade: Rishad

In Sri Lanka’s ongoing attempts to further diversify its export markets, the Asia-Pacific region has become a promising destination and it is important for countries to voluntarily take on trade harmonising initiatives for ease of trade while better facilitation can increase trade by as much as 15%.

“I am pleased to reveal that our exports to Asia Pacific under APTA have increased by a highly promising 360% in the period of 2007 to 2011,” announced Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen on 30 October.

Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the inaugural event of the Asia Pacific Trade Facilitation Forum 2012 (APTFF) on 30 October at Galadari Hotel, Colombo. The first-ever APTFF forum to be held in Colombo was based on the theme ‘Enhancing Public-Private Collaboration for Trade Facilitation, Paperless Trade and Cross-Border Connectivity’.

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce co-hosted the event with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC), United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the event saw delegates not only from Asia and the Pacific but even from African (Kenya), Central Asia (Tajikistan) and the Caribbean (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago) regions taking part.

“We are no longer a low income country,” said Senior Minister for International Monetary Cooperation Dr. Sarath Amunugama, addressing the event, adding that even in difficult times, Sri Lanka will grow by 6.5% to 7%.

“Job creation is the mantra of the developed world, which is on the verge of recession. Therefore trade has been very important for recovery and job creation. In Asia, where good export earnings have been reported, everybody is rethinking Western markets. There are two solutions – we should enter the vacant spaces to get best returns for our exports. Better facilitation can increase our trade by as much as 15%. Secondly, improved intra-regional trade can considerably substitute on our current global trade volumes.”

“The ADB is looking into increase regional cooperation and integration outlay by 30% of its total operations by 2020,” said Asian Development Bank Country Director Rita O’Sullivan addressing the event. “Regional cooperation and integration play a critical role to achieve trade and investments goals in any country,” she added.

The APTA bloc members are China, India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Laos. In 2010, Sri Lanka’s total exports to APTA bloc (Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, and South Korea) stood at $ 64.5 m which topped to $ 99 m in 2011, according to the latest estimates provided by the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka.

It is significant that under APTA, Sri Lanka receives export tariff concessions for 4,795 export items from APTA bloc, of which 1,858 product items are from China – the highest tariff concession giving country under APTA; South Korea closely follows with 1,673 items, and India, 1055. Also in 2007-2011, Lanka’s exports to China under APTA grew by 719%, with China thereby becoming the most promising destination when it comes to Sri Lanka-APTA trade.

“Hosting this annual forum on trade facilitation which provides Asia Pacific countries a platform to share their experiences, best practices and also network with each other, is very timely and important for my country,” Bathiudeen added.

Stressing on the importance of trade harmonising by Sri Lanka, Bathiudeen added: “While recognising that governments require sufficient policy space to implement the required procedures to monitor trade, I believe it is also vital that such procedures should be harmonised and streamlined as much as possible to achieve meaningful results. While work is ongoing in the WTO itself to implement such harmonisation within the framework of the rules-based multilateral trading itself, it can only be enhanced by countries voluntarily undertaking improvements to address gaps and delays in their system as well as in implementing, innovating and far-reaching mechanisms to streamline their procedures.”