Shipping agency representatives, whose businesses are badly affected after the Easter Sunday attacks, urged the government to take immediate measures to get the travel advisories on Sri Lanka lifted to smoothly operate their business activities.
Ralph Anandappa, a representative from the Ceylon Association of Shipping Agents (CASA) made a request to State Finance Minister Eran Wickramaratne who was present at an event, organized by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) on Wednesday to discuss issues facing the industries under the prevailing security situation in the country, to take immediate steps to help revive their business activities. Furthermore, he stressed the need to communicate or share information about security measures taken by the government to protect Sri Lankan ports, cargo vessels, and passenger vessels with the shipping agency officials as soon as possible.
He said, CASA had a discussion with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and the Secretary to the Ministry of Ports in this regard. “I believe they’re working on something, but still we haven’t got any feedback from them,” he said.
“At least If we get such a document, containing information about the measures taken by the relevant authorities to secure Sri Lankan ports and other industry related activities; we can communicate it to our stakeholders overseas, which would give them confidence on measures that we have adopted to consolidate our position in this area.
“Also due to these travel advisories, we’re unable to sign on or sign off certain ships that call Colombo for crew operations because crew members cannot fly in or fly out due to such advisories in their countries,” he said.
He noted that passenger ship operations have also been affected due to travel advisories issued by several countries on Sri Lanka. Speaking further on issues affecting the shipping agencies, he said, “Our taxation is based on income received from foreign remittances, which is currently at 80%. Under the present circumstances, it is very difficult to achieve 80% because our income, volumes of ships, passengers and scale of operations have dropped significantly. He urged the government to review this figure or maybe bring it down to 60% or below as an interim measure to help sustain the business activities of shipping agencies in the country.
0 comments: