Sri Lanka to resume negotiations on stalled trade agreement with India

 

Sri Lanka will soon resume talks with India on the stalled Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), authorities said, as Colombo looks to trade pacts and foreign direct investments to rebuild its crisis-hit economy.

“We hope to commence negotiations on the ETCA later this month,” said K.J.Weerasinghe, Chief Negotiator of FTAs at the International Trade Office, recently set up under the Presidential Secretariat.

“We had finished 11 rounds of bilateral talks the last time [between 2016 and 2019] with the aim of broadening and deepening the [ISFTA] that is in force since India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement,” said the senior official, who was formerly Director General of the Department of Commerce, following several diplomatic stints focusing on Sri Lanka’s international trade interests.

However, the Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe-led government that was in power at the time could not complete negotiations.