om the disaster over the longer term. Certain sectors are of particular importance to Tsunami affected countries. These include the sectors that have been disproportionately impacted by the disaster (for example fisherfolk). They also include those sectors that provide the vital economic growth and employment that will be needed to help affected countries recover.
The Tsunami and Clothing
The European Union and the USA should help disaster-struck countries by immediately improving access to their markets for exports that are vital to the region's economies. Increased exports of textiles and clothing, for example, could generate tens of thousands of jobs, raise incomes, and generate the foreign exchange that affected countries need for essential imports and the enormous challenge of post-tsunami reconstruction. In Sri Lanka, the clothing sector accounts for more than half of the country's total export income and provides 350,000 jobs, mainly for women.
It is now time for the USA and EU to end the punitive duties that affect the tsunami-hit countries. In 2003, the US and EU treasuries collected nearly US$1 billion in taxes solely on Sri Lankan and Indonesian exports of clothing and textiles. These sums may well come close to the amount of aid they disburse. FOOTNOTE
Six days after the tsunami hit, on 1 January, the Multi-Fibre Arrangement came to an end. China and India will gain from the abolition of quotas but the former group of countries will lose out. Sri Lanka, for example, could lose 100,000 jobs as a result of the increased competition. Some analysts believe that Indonesia could lose even more. For these countries, the disaster could not have come at a worse time.
The EU and USA should immediately remove tariff barriers to imports of textiles and clothing from tsunami-affected countries. To avoid unintended discrimination, such zero tariffs should be extended to other poor countries that are highly dependent on textile and clothing exports.
The EU should also immediately simplify its ‘rules of origin' affecting the Maldives and other Least Developed Countries, to improve their access to European markets. As one of the world's poorest countries, the Maldives should be entitled to supply clothes for the European market without paying import taxes, but the EU insists that both the fabric and the clothing must be made in the Maldives in order for goods to qualify – a condition that the Maldives, along with other poor exporting countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, cannot meet. As a result, the Maldives has to pay duty on three-quarters of its sales. Sri Lanka, a non-LDC, faces a similar problem: if it imports fabric from the cheapest source – China, for example – it pays higher duty in the EU. If it sources more expensive fabric from the region, it loses competitiveness. The rules of origin should be simplified for Sri Lanka and the few other non-LDCs highly dependent on clothing exports.
Transnational clothing and footwear companies have a responsibility to defer any decision to shift production out of tsunami-affected countries. Companies, such as GAP, Victoria's Secret, ASDA, Marks and Spencers, and NIKE, source goods from Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Some might have been considering shifting their production from tsunami-affected countries to their cheaper competitors, such as China. Any relocation decision should be deferred. If and when production does move, it should be gradual, with full respect for labour rights, such as redundancy payments.
Fisherfolk are amongst the poorest people in the region. They are also one of the most negatively affected communities, particularly in Tamil Nadu, India but also in Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Somalia and the Andaman Islands.
Fisherfolk and their families have suffered tremendous loss of life and also devastation to their livelihoods, homes as well as their fishing gear and boats. The aquatic diversity of the region has also been devastated by the tsunami. Coral reefs have been destroyed by the force of the waves and are now choked with silt. Mangrove swamps and coas