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Sri Lanka - Vietnam bilateral trade pact to be renewed

Sri Lanka and Vietnam have agreed to draft a new bilateral trade agreement, which would replace the existing agreement drafted in 1978, with the view to enhance it to a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in future, states a release from the Ministry of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake, who was on an official visit to Vietnam had signed an MOU with his Vietnamese counterpart, Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen on Sunday, which includes exchanging information and expertise in production, processing and export marketing fields.

The Ministers met for bilateral talks, also discussed the importance of creating a favourable environment to bolster existing business relations and of promoting new trade partnerships. The existing trade agreement, which was signed on March 3, 1978 in Colombo, has provided the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) treatment for the trade flow between two countries, which is currently dominated by rice imports to Sri Lanka.

It was also mooted that the business opportunities existing in Vietnam for intermediate goods and industrial raw materials for industries like hotel, construction, tea and garment, could be explored by Sri Lankan businesses.

The Vietnam Minister said that his country could supply between 30,000 and 50,000 tonnes of rice annually to Sri Lanka, while Karunanayake proposed exporting our chemical products to Vietnam on the basis of the agreements reached.

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