Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe said Sri Lanka will regain the EU’s GSP+ trade concessions after the UN Human Rights Council session in September.

The concessions were withdrawn by the EU over human rights concerns in 2010.

“We earlier thought that the concession applies only to apparel industry but eventually the fish products were also included in the tax concessions,” Mr Wickramasinghe said.

“Now we are working on getting back the GSP plus after the Human Rights Council sessions which are to be held in Geneva in September by solving the existing issues.”

The EU also banned imports of fisheries products from Sri Lanka, its second biggest importer in the sector, in order to "tackle the commercial benefits stemming from illegal fishing”.#

The prime minister said the government was working to address these issues.

“We signed an agreement with a company providing these services. We have already installed the necessary equipment in 165 fishing boats and are expecting to install another 400 in the coming weeks.” he said.

“The European Union said we have violated 57 procedures over the last two years. Currently we have successfully completed 36 processes out of these 57,

“We are to hold discussions with the European Union in September and October and will be able to regain the fishing concession before the end of this year," he added.

Sri Lanka confident in restoring GSP+ trade concessions (03 June 2015)

 ‘An awful lot remains to be done’ on human rights in Sri Lanka says EU envoy (10 May 2015)

Rights issues crucial to granting GSP+ in Sri Lanka, says EU Ambassador (31 March 2015)

Sri Lanka seeks to regain GSP+ (28 March 2015)

EU parliament's 'Friends of Sri Lanka' in visit to help remove fishing ban (08 March 2015)

EU suspends fish imports from Sri Lanka (16 January 2015)