Our offer is wholesome: Treasury Secretary clarifies on U.S. tariff

• “Our offer is a wholesome one, factoring, opening up market, and making doing business easier in Sri Lanka”   

By Ajith Siriwardana   

Referring to the announcement by the United States on  tariff reduction, the government yesterday said Sri Lanka’s approach was  to provide competitive market access on a competitive basis for U.S.  suppliers instead of Government to Government agreements.   

He told a special media briefing that the discussions  focused on minimising both tariffs and para-tariffs, with trade  facilitation identified as a major component of the offer.   

Responding to a question what Sri Lanka offered to the  U.S., Dr. Suriyapperuma said Sri Lanka’s approach was to provide  competitive market access on a competitive basis for U.S. suppliers  instead of Government to Government agreements and added that  discussions focused on minimising both tariffs and para-tariffs, with  trade facilitation identified as a major component of the offer. 

“Our offer is a wholesome one, factoring, opening up the market, and making doing business easier in Sri Lanka,” he said.   

When asked about potential changes to intellectual property  laws, import of oil or agricultural inputs, or broader trade  concessions, he said that Sri Lanka’s energy imports were part of the  talks, with the aim of achieving more competitive pricing.   

“Sri Lanka is a net importer of energy products, raw  materials and advanced machinery. Sri Lanka imports a significant amount of  these goods into the country for the industries, businesses and for  consumption. Since Sri Lanka imports these goods anyway, we were  discussing how to open up market without any discrimination,” he said.      He said the government will continue engagements with the  United States with the hope of getting further tariff reduction if  possible.   

Dr. Suriyapperuma said the government was able to achieve successful results due to continuous engagements with the U.S.   

He said that the primary goal of the negotiations was to  determine how Sri Lanka could move forward while preserving its  competitive position in the regional market, adding that the focus was  not solely on the tariff percentage but on maintaining market share for  Sri Lankan exporters of goods and services.