Strategic help from Germany for Sri Lankan exporters to win more European buyers

by Sanath Nanayakkare

The Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Sri Lanka (AHK Sri Lanka) and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF Sri Lanka) recently launched a timely initiative in Sri Lanka named ‘Sustainable supply chains as driver for global competitiveness’.This initiative will help Sri Lankan companies to have broader and easier market access to the EU by adhering to EU’s strictly documented compliance with certain sustainability standards related to social and environmental aspects.

The programme is designed to raise awareness of Sri Lankan exporters on the need for sustainability related documentation in order to increase global competitiveness of Sri Lankan products and services to gain broader market access to not only the EU but to the US market as well.The initiative will comprise a series of training sessions, assessments and certification especially targeting the sectors of apparel/textile, rubber, and food/agriculture.

The Consultancy of former Human Rights Commissioner of the German government Markus Loening will train representatives of the Sri Lankan companies on how to comply with global and EU related sustainability standards. In fact, many Sri Lankan companies already comply with these standards but are unaware of the requirement of formal documentation.

MAS Holdings COO Shirendra Lawrence, the keynote speaker of the event explained how absolute compliance with sustainability standards helped MAS become the largest apparel company in South Asia as well as a global leader.Ambassador Denis Chaibi- Head of EU Mission to Sri Lanka and the Maldives speaking at the event underlined the importance of the ongoing regulation process on sustainability standards in the EU and its member countries. He said that Sri Lankan exporters can export a wide range of products to the EU duty-free under the EU’s GSP+ trade facility, subject to its human rights, environment, labour, social and other stipulated standards.German Industry and Commerce in Sri Lanka Chief Delegate Andreas Hergenroether said, “Through this programme, we want to support Sri Lankan exporters to obtain broader market access to EU. Today sustainability standards are a top priority in the minds of the consumers in the EU countries. Maybe they are partially politically driven, but they are also more and more customer and industry driven. Besides the existing official legally binding standards, European importers require more and more consumer driven standards like Fairtrade, Compliance +, Good Manufacturing Practices, etc.”Hubertus von Welck, Head of Friedrich Naumann Foundation Sri Lanka emphasised the need to restart the economy and overcome the adverse impacts of the pandemic.

“For this we will support Sri Lanka. We will support your export-driven entrepreneurship to strengthen their compliance standards set out in the ‘UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’. This will help Sri Lankan products and services to be well- accepted in the markets of advanced economies and thereby increase Sri Lanka’s export earnings,” he said.