The European Union has granted preliminary approval to lift the ban imposed on Sri Lanka’s seafood exports to the European Union, a local media report said. A spokesman from the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources has told News Radio that the EU had arrived at the decision to partially lift the ban following several rounds of discussions and decided to allow Sri Lanka to export fish within the next few months. The order to lift the ban completely will be submitted to the European Parliament and the EU will inform Sri Lanka of the lifting of the ban following approval by the EU Parliament. Sri Lanka is facing a ban on its fish exports to European Union from mid-January 2015 due to Sri Lanka’s failure to demonstrate that it sufficiently addressed illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. A group of officials from the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducted the final round of discussions in Brussels last month. Since the European Union announced the ban in October 2014 on the imports of seafood products from the island nation, Sri Lanka’s seafood exports declined over 35 percent in 2015.
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