Sri Lanka: Crucial meeting on lifting EU fish export ban tomorrow(21st April)

A crucial meeting between government authorities and European Union officials is slated to take place tomorrow, reportedly to discuss the lifting of the fishery export ban imposed by the EU. Media reports which appeared yesterday suggesting that the EU has decided to lift the ban are not correct, according to both Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera and the EU. However, a final decision is likely at the meeting tomorrow, a reliable source said. Meanwhile, when contacted, a spokesperson for the EU said: “Talks between the EU and government officials are well advanced. However, no decision has been made as yet.” A group of officials from the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry conducted what was described as a final round of discussions in Brussels last month. Sri Lanka is facing a ban on its fish exports to the European Union due to its failure to demonstrate that it sufficiently addressed illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Since the European Union announced the ban in October 2014 on the imports of seafood products from Sri Lanka the country’s seafood exports declined over 35 percent in 2015. Sri Lanka is the second largest exporter of fresh and chilled swordfish and tuna to the EU (euro 74 million imports in 2013) and it incurs a USD 100 million annual loss due to the ban on fish exports by the European Union during the past two years, the sources said.