Don't let the local confectioners to fall due to imports of

foreign sweets

Patriotic National Movement (PNM) has paid its attention to the press briefing held recently by the local confectioners voicing their concerns over the on- going crisis in the confectionary market due to cheap and substandard foreign sweet imports.

According to the published reports, hundreds of confectioneries are on the brim of shutting down due unlimited imports of cheap and substandard sweet from overseas. It would inevitably pave the way for thousands of people to lose their livelihood as well. As an organization concerned with the development of local industries, the PNM would like to express its serious concerns over the pathetic plight of the local confectionary industry.

The local industrialists and entrepreneurs would have never expected such a situation in the context where the "Mahinda Chinthanaya" of President Mahinda Rajapakse has assured a program to uplift the local industrialists.

However this process of unlimited importation of cheap foreign sweets which jeopardizes local confectioner who has been producing world-class sweets and also unjustly enriching a few unscrupulous business tycoons engaged in importing who are unconcerned about health of our people should be immediately halted.

We strongly urge that the Government should take all possible steps to control and restrict the importation of foreign confection to protect the local producers. In the same manner we urge the government to take all possible steps to conduct quality control tests for all imported sweets before they are released to the public for consumption.

We would also like to urge the parents and adults to refrain from buying the imported sweets to keep our younger generation free from diseases because it is the children who mostly consume those low - quality cheap foreign sweets.

National Executive Committee

Patriotic National Movement

18.03.2007