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| Wednesday, 28 July 2004 |
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JAFF to support 'Mauritius Declaration' by Sudarshana Perera The Joint Apparel Association (JAFF) in collaboration with the government sector will support the "Mauritius Declaration" in calling for the extension of the Multi Fibre Agreement by three years (MFA) at an urgent meeting with the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The Sri Lankan apparel sector, which consists of diverse splinter groups are now formulating a unified stance to circumvent the expiry of MFA. They are also seeking strong government support to activate the entire process. The "Mauritius Declaration" comes in the wake of an urgent meeting held recently which highlighted the danger of loosing millions of jobs worldwide and the necessity of making representations to the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Secretary General of JAAF , M.P.T. Cooray told the Daily News that the apparel sector is strongly lobbying the government to attract its support. "We are fully geared to work with international bodies to arrest this situation and we are doing our part to organise ourselves to back the efforts taken by worldwide organisations," Cooray said. "The summit held in Brussels recently also deliberated on the negative consequences that developing countries would face due to the termination of the MFA. We were able to highlight our grievances at the summit. We are a part of that international effort. We should also develop strong bi-lateral relationships with other countries to win our cause", he said. JAAF is also expected to implement an ambitious program to improve productivity, efficiency and marketing capacities of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Garment and Garment subcontracting business. This initiative will withstand the expiry of the Multi-Fibre Agreement next year. The JAAF is planing to make Sri Lanka's apparel sector a bigger player globally through the "Made in Sri Lanka" logo. The association has identified 850 SMEs in the apparel sector which need assistance and initially 200 SMEs will undergo productivity and efficiency training programs for two years and productivity of those firms will be improved by another 30 per cent. |
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