Top WTO officials in town for DoC’s Colombo briefing

As Sri Lanka trade readies to further open to China and India, two top officials from Geneva are in Colombo to brief the keen Lankan officials and business sector on safeguard measures.

The WTO reps, Clarisse Morgan and Seref Coskun will meet Lankans on 8 April at a special session organised by the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka on ‘Awareness program on the proposed Trade Remedies Legislation of Sri Lanka’ to be held at the Chamber of Commerce auditorium.

The reps will take part and highlight on the domestic safeguards to be implemented as the country’s trade is liberalised further. The program will be held on 8 April at the Auditorium of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce from 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 

The WTO resource persons Clarisse Morgan (Counsellor for the WTO) and Seref Coskun (Technical Trade Specialist to WTO) will assist the sessions to clarify and show the way forward. Ministry of Industry and Commerce Secretary TMKB Tennekoon and Director General of Commerce Sonali Wijeratne will also address the session.  

Clarisse Morgan is a Counsellor in the Rules Division of the World Trade Organisation and is also Secretary of the Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. 

She is specialised in subsidies and fishery subsidies. She also heads the Rules Division’s technical assistance activities. Technical Trade Specialist in Rules Division Seref Gokay Coskun who recently joined the Rules Division of the WTO Secretariat, was the Head of Section at the Dumping and CVD Investigations Department of the Ministry of Economy of Turkey. He was also the case handler of the first countervailing duty investigation of Turkey.

The DoC statement on the event adds: “While the Government of Sri Lanka is ambitious for greater trade liberalisation with huge economies such as India and China, it also recognises the need for trade remedies legislation to safeguard domestic industries producing similar products. Therefore the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka (DoC) with the Technical Assistance Division of, in collaboration with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka has organised an awareness program on the proposed Trade Remedies Legislation of Sri Lanka. 

“The key subject areas for 8 April discussion will be the basics of trade remedies, implications for the stakeholders of establishing and operating a national trade remedies system, multilateral framework of trade remedies rules and requirements and dispute settlement on trade remedial actions. With the increasing tendency of world trade towards liberalisation, the threats to domestic industries from dumping of imported products are also on the rise.  

“The adverse effects arising from unfair business practices of foreign manufactures are increasingly experienced by developed and developing countries alike. In order to counteract adverse impact of such imports however, countries must ensure that their domestic legislations on trade remedies are properly established. These laws provide contingent protection to domestic industries from unfair practices of dumping, subsidised imports and against sudden surge/influx of imports through imposition of safeguards.  

“Sri Lanka, as a small and vulnerable economy within the global trading system has experienced the effects of imports to domestic industries perhaps more rigorously than many other  developing countries of the world due to lack of trade remedies legislation in place.