Top Lankan team heading to Brussels on EU fishery ban‏

A top Lankan delegation on the European Union (EU) Fishery ban is scheduled to leave for Brussels on March 30, Chairman of Seafood Exporters Association of Sri Lanka (SEASL) and Managing Director of Global Sea Foods, Prabhash Subasinghe said.

Chairman Subasinghe was addressing at EDB yesterday during a special discussion that the State Minister was attending with Lankan seafood exporters. Representatives from leading seafood export firms of Sri Lanka including Global Seafoods Ltd, NorthWest Fishery, Sri Lanka Aquaculture Producers Association etc were meeting Minister Subasinghe to apprise him of issues they are faced with.

In October 2014, EU declared: “Sri Lanka is not complying with international rules on illegal fishing and Lankan control systems inadequate. Fisheries products caught by vessels flagged in Sri Lanka will not be able to enter the EU market.”

Thereafter, in March 2015, under the supervision of Hon Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, a Committee was appointed on the fishery ban which continuously met, updating the EU with its progress reports. The 2014 EU fish ban affected Sri Lanka’s seafood exports and the 500,000 strong fishery sector livelihoods.

"This meeting is almost expected to be the final, and a decisive meeting with EU on the fishery ban issue and its outcome will determine our fishery export outlook to Europe in future. We believe the outcome shall be favorable for Sri Lanka” he said. 

Chairman Subasinghe and added that in post-ban period, our seafood exports are suffering and complicating the situation is the unfriendly import and export policy environment. "For example, we need to pay a licence fee of $50 per tonne of seafood we export while suffering from inadequate production volumes to meet the export demands. We need the government’s support for us to increase production,"

"The 9% tariff charged by China on our seafood exports is a problem and this needs to be discussed at FTA formulation. We praise the government’s prompt responses to the EU in this, which are helping us to overcome our export setbacks.” he said.

Despite the ban, three EU countries- Italy, UK and Netherlands- were among the top five buyers of Lankan seafood in 2014, while the US and Japan topped the list (as no one and two) in the same year. Lankan seafood production tripled by 2015 from 2004 volumes and of the total harvest, only about a quarter is exported due to heavy domestic consumer demand. More than 70% of Lankan seafood exports consist of tuna fish. The $252.7 Mn Lankan seafood exports in 2014 but declined by 35% to $163.1 Mn in 2015.