Indo Lanka bilateral trade set to grow

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Kamal Nath 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 $ 1497 million in 2004-05 to US $ 2590 million in 2005-06 and has been valued at US $ 2462.28 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 Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Dr. Sarath Amunugama called on him recently. 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 amongst the fourth largest investor in Sri Lanka.

During the ongoing negotiations, India has already agreed to prove Sri Lankan garment industry a TRQ of 3 million pieces of garments without any condition of sourcing of fabrics and port restrictions.

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 Bureau of Indian Standards.

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