Ex-President of Free Trade Zone Manufactures Association, Dhammika Fernando cried foul over remarks made by Ministry of Labour John Sevenviratne that regaining of GSL Plus would result in additional wages for the apparel sector.
“This is a total misconception and a misleading statement by the Minister of Labour who seemed to be ignorant of the developments of the GSP plus. This will also stir up the unions and create an unnecessary misunderstanding.”
He said that the benefit of GSP Plus would be for buyers from EU as they would not have to pay duty of around average 2 to 12.5% for 1,400 tariff headings. This does not mean that the buyers would pay more to us (manufactures) and hence there would be no additional income for us However there may be additional orders to us from EU countries, but that too would take time.
“In this scenario we would not get additional revenue and hence how can we give a wage increase?” he asked.He said the minister must soon clarify this or the unions would bat on this statement and create an unnecessary situation. He however said that the Minister of Labour should look as to how over 35,000 job vacancies in the Free Trade Zone alone are not being filled and launch a campaign to fill them.
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