India to move at Lanka's desired pace on ETCA

The Dollar Business Bureau

India said on Thursday that it is ready to move at the pace at which Sri Lanka is capable in the proposed ETCA (Economic and Technology Cooperation Framework Agreement), which would highly benefit the island nation in sectors such as technology, IT, vocational training and tourism. 

While addressing the 8th annual general meeting of Indo-Lanka Chamber of Commerce in Colombo, YK Sinha, High Commissioner of India said that the first round of talks would start soon.

“India was prepared to move at a pace which Sri Lanka is comfortable with and address Sri Lankan concerns as well as take measures to facilitate Sri Lankan exports to India,” Sinha said. 

Sinha said, “As proposed by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, ETCA would put emphasis on sectors like technology, IT, capacity building, tourism and vocational training, among others, which would highly benefit Sri Lanka. 

The High Commissioner further said that the visit of Malik Samarawickrama, International Trade Minister of Sri Lanka to India was very fruitful and the eagerness to move further was immense from both the sides. 

Stating that India had received FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) amounting to $40 billion in 2015-16, Sinha stressed that Sri Lanka has to take benefit of its closeness to India by linking into supply chains and value chains. 

Mentioning the new and transformative stage in the bilateral ties between the two countries, he said that four high-level visits between the countries took place within 90 days of the new government formation in Sri Lanka in January last year.