India has prepared a new roadmap to enable Sri Lanka to export more garments under the bilateral trade pact.
Sunjay Sudhir, India's Economic and Commercial Councellor to Sri Lanka while addressing Sri Lankan businessmen regretted that quotas on apparel and tea have not been utilized properly and have not kicked off at all.
He informed that India was in the process of providing more favourable package which will liberalise apparel exports from Sri Lanka to India.
Bilateral trade pact between the two nations allows Sri Lanka to export items like clothes, tea and textiles under tariffs concession.
Under the pact, Sri Lanka can export 8 million pieces of clothes enjoying 50 percent preferential margin over the general rate but it has been highly under utilized with less than a million pieces exported to India.
Hindrance to the treaty is the fact that it binds manufacturers to use Indian fabrics only.
Sudhir informed that the Indian Government was looking to solve it in two ways.
First was to do away with the 50 percent margin and make it zero duty and second was the abolition of the rule of using only Indian fabrics. He said that these steps would provide Lankan manufacturers the platform to compete with on equal terms.
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