‘SL to deepen FTA with India, sign one with China soon’

Sri Lanka will deepen the FTA with India towards a comprehensive economic and technology cooperation agreement and will also finalise a FTA with China during this year, said Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade, Malik Samarawickrama.

“This will be followed by FTAs with Thailand and Malaysia. This is in addition to the FTA Sri Lanka has with Pakistan,” he said welcoming over 75 leading Japanese business leaders to Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka also signed one with Singapore few days ago during the visit of the Singaporean Prime Minister which is Sri Lanka’s first comprehensive FTA covering goods, services, investment, e-commerce, government procurement, telecommunications and financial services.

For a Japanese business looking for a credible and comfortable springboard to South Asia and beyond, there is no better place than Sri Lanka. With the new FTAs, investors can gain preferential market access to a market of nearly three billion people. Sri Lanka is probably one of the few countries in the world that can claim this!”

“With our excellent strategic location, we have also become attractive for Belt and Road projects from China,” the Minister said.

Samarawickrama also said that Japan has been a steady and long-standing partner of Sri Lanka, in supporting infrastructure development, knowledge exchange, and technical cooperation.

Sri Lanka and Japan also have a trade and investment relationship dating back many decades. the two countries entered into a ‘Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Treaty’ in 1982 and a ‘Double Tax Avoidance Agreement’ back in 1967. The government is focusing on reform initiatives to catalyse growth and create better jobs for our people.

“The focus of the government is to shift the economic growth model from one that was heavily dependent on debt-fuelled public infrastructure spending, to growth driven more by private enterprises, exports, and foreign direct investment,” he said.