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Rohan Masakorala, the former Secretary General of the association's forum, recently said that the EU's special preferential tariff scheme (GSP+) to eliminate tariffs on Sri Lanka has caused the clothing department of Sri Lanka to lose about $1 billion in exports to the EU market.

He pointed out that despite losing

The damage to Sri Lanka's 30 year old garment industry is obvious, but the Sri Lankan government still insists that the abolition of the ex gratia plan has not greatly affected the domestic garment industry.

Worse still, even if the need for such a preferential scheme is recognized, the government is not keen to reapply for the same policy.

Speaking at the technical meeting of the Sri Lankan Economic Association 2012 annual meeting, Rohan Masakorala said that the clothing sector had not been deeply aware of the pain of losing the EU preferential scheme in the past year, because the problems in China and Bangladesh forced their importers to seek product sources from Sri Lanka.

However, the situation has changed.

Although Sri Lanka

Businessmen are constantly being told to open up new markets, but Masakorala says it's not that easy.

In particular, it is rather difficult to enter the India and China market and gain a foothold.

However, the clothing industry in Sri Lanka can still remain floating because it has the ability to produce and supply the needed products more quickly than Bangladesh.

At the same time, it needs GSP+ and improves its labor productivity.

It is understood that Sri Lanka lost in August 2010.

The GSP+ access policy.

Subsequently, several costumes in Sri Lanka collapsed due to the significant increase in trade costs.