The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe
Wasantha Samarasinghe stated that, in addition to ETCA, previously signed agreements with Singapore and Thailand had been halted, with litigation on the Singapore FTA now understood to have concluded. He said a Cabinet-appointed high-level expert committee is reviewing these agreements to identify gaps and priorities, with recommendations expected by January on the President’s instructions. He indicated that, subject to the committee’s guidance, the Government aims to begin negotiations in the first quarter of the following year.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Member, not only ETCA—two agreements we signed earlier, with Singapore and Thailand, had been halted; the Singapore FTA was under litigation which, I understand, has now concluded. A high-level expert committee appointed by the Cabinet is rapidly reviewing all agreements to identify gaps and priorities and to restart negotiations. The President has instructed that recommendations be provided by January to initiate the necessary steps. If feasible, we aim to enter negotiations in the first quarter of next year, subject to the committee’s guidance. We are ready.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Monday, 24 November 2025 ·No. 23008 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/15296
Cite as: The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 24 November 2025. No. 23008. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/15296