The Hon. Chathuranga Abeysinghe - Deputy Minister
The Deputy Minister stated that the Government supports free trade agreements but intends to review existing agreements to ensure Sri Lanka has the industrial and product development strategies needed to benefit from them. Referring to the Singapore Free Trade Agreement, he said industry concerns include rules of origin and value addition, given Singapore’s role as a trading hub, and said the Agreement would be reviewed rather than rejected. On ETCA, he noted past concerns over the 2018 proposal and said negotiations with India would begin to address such issues, including restrictions on labour mobility and professional access.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Thank you for the question raised, Hon. Kabir Hashim.
¶ 02 The position of the Government is, we are in favour of free trade agreements. [Interruption.] Yes, it is our policy. I think you do not have to applaud by tapping on the Table because, globally, every country has gone ahead with free trade agreements. But, our experience with free trade agreements has not been so good. The reason is not because the agreement is bad, but whether we have an industrialization strategy or a product development strategy to make benefit out of it. Since you asked about the Singapore Free Trade Agreement, I must say that the concern raised by the industrial sector is that, basically, Singapore is not a producing country but more of a trading country. So, the concern was, how do you identify the country of origin of a product? How many products does Singapore add value to? Also, how do you figure out whether it is 30 per cent or 40 per cent, was another concern of the industrial sector. That is one reason why we want to really review that Agreement. So, it is not that we are avoiding it, but we need a little bit of time.
¶ 03 Then, with regard to the ETCA, earlier, there were concerns about the ETCA originally proposed in 2018. Now, we have to negotiate with the Indian Government on how to rectify those things. I will give you one example. I worked in India for two years and the Indian Government wanted my company to prove that my skill does not exist in India. I had to show that I was drawing a salary of US Dollars 25,000 to get permission to work in India for two years. So, that is the level of restriction that was there. Therefore, with regard to the ETCA also, an agreement has not been reached, but negotiations will start. So, what I am trying to say is that we are not against free trade agreements, but will negotiate and the agreements which have already been signed will be reviewed. That is the Government policy.
¶ 04 There are two other matters as well. Regarding regulations for a casino-related institution,—
Provenance
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- Hansard, Wednesday, 8 January 2025 ·No. 1737023464031571 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Chathuranga Abeysinghe - Deputy Minister. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 January 2025. No. 1737023464031571. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27599