Sri Lanka is wooing Chinese manufacturers, to make use of its preferential duty-free treatment by the US and Europe as a way to offset the growing tariff pressure of the trade war.
This was stated by Minister for Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama at the Sri Lanka Investment Forum in Beijing on Wednesday 03.
He was in Beijing as part of an investment forum at the Sri Lankan embassy attended by dozens of Chinese businesspeople.
China has invested heavily in infrastructure and they are assisting Sri Lanka to invest in ports, roads, railways, water supplies etc.
“Now we would like China to get involved in setting up their manufacturing plants in Sri Lanka, primarily for the purpose of exports," he said.
"They can make use of the preferential market access we have – we have duty-free access to European Union countries and we have free-trade agreements with Pakistan, Singapore and India”, he said.
This was reported in the South China Morning Post giving wide publicity to Minister Samarawickrama’s official tour of China.
“Since the cost of manufacturing in China is going up, we would like the Chinese to look at Sri Lanka for their manufacturing and we want it to be exported back to China, "he said.
China is one of Sri Lanka's largest trading partners the largest financier of its booming new infrastructure.
Other big lenders to the island nation are the Asian Development Bank and Japan.
Earlier this year the Sri Lankan government signed a US$989.5 million loan agreement with China's Export-Import Bank for a major new high way project.
Sri Lanka's finance ministry confirmed it was in talks with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for a loan of nearly US$1 billion for energy and high ways.
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