Lanka-India seek to enhance bilateral trade

INDIA: Kamal Nath, India’s Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, has expressed hope that the outstanding issues relating to the operationalisation of TRQ of vanaspati including bakery shortening and margarine and import of marble and copper from Sri Lanka to India would be negotiated soon to further increase the Indo-Sri Lankan bilateral trade.

Observing that the bilateral trade has increased from US$ 1,497 million in 2004-05 to US$ 2,590 million in 2005-06 and has been valued at US 2,462.28 million in 2006-07, Kamal Nath hoped that the increase in the coming years would be substantial.

This was stated by the Indian Commerce Minister when Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion called on him yesterday.

India is the dominant partner in the bilateral economic relations with Sri Lanka, as almost 15% - 20% of total Sri Lankan imports are accounted for by India.

With an investment of US $ 400-500 million in FDI, India is also he fourth largest investor in Sri Lanka.

During the ongoing negotiations, India has already agreed to prove Sri Lankan garment industry a TRQ of three million pieces of garments without any condition of sourcing of fabrics and port restrictions.

Further cooperation between the two countries include bilateral cooperation agreement (MOU) on product, quality, certification and testing that has been signed between Sri Lankan Standards Institute and the Bureau of Indian Standards.

This is expected to benefit both the countries in areas related to standardisation, quality and certification of products.