Japanese Ambassador raises concerns over high taxation

Japanese Ambassador Akio Isomata raised concerns about high taxation in Sri Lanka on automobile imports from Japan.

 

Delivering his remarks at a roundtable meeting last week, the ambassador said there is high taxation on electric vehicles being imported from Japan compared to those coming from another country. In case Sri Lanka considers a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Japan, he said high taxation on vehicles from Japan should be discussed.

 

However, he said Japan is not prepared for an FTA with Sri Lanka merely for the sake of having one or for its sentimental value. Asserting that no such proposal for a trade deal had been made by Sri Lanka, he said an FTA between the two countries would be realistic based on mutual benefits only.

 

Otherwise, he said an FTA would not be considered merely on political, symbolic reasons. Delving into Japan’s experience in dealing with reciprocal tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, he said, “Chronologically speaking, the so-called Declaration Day announcement was made by President Trump early in April. Immediately on April 7, our Prime Minister made a phone call to President Trump, and both leaders decided to appoint, designate a minister in charge for negotiation-bilateral negotiation between Japan and the United States on this issue,” he said.

 

He said, for Japan, this kind of difficult issue with the United States is not new at all.

 

“We have been doing this for many decades. Even before the war in the 1930s, when Japan was exporting a lot of cotton textiles to the United States, we were forced to implement some kind of voluntary export restrictions in the 1930s.

 

And after the war in the 1960s and 1970s, we had a very difficult issue of textile exports from Japan to the United States. We had to make an agreement with the United States about the voluntary export restrictions. In the 1970s, we had a difficult issue of beef and orange imports from the United States,” he said.