8 January 2025 10:00 pm Views - 842
By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera
Parliament, January 08 (Daily Mirror)- Claiming that the government is not against free trade agreements, Deputy Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development Chaturanga Abeysinghe said today the government will negotiate with the Indian government on how to rectify the concerns raised against the Economic and Technology Co-operation Agreement (ETCA) which was originally proposed in 2018.
The Deputy Minister told Parliament that earlier, there were concerns of the ETCA which was originally proposed in 2018 and that the government will negotiate with the Indian government to rectify those concerns.
"The agreement on ETCA has not been reached. The government will start negotiations," he said.
Referring to the Singapore Free Trade Agreement, he said the government is not avoiding the agreement but the government needs some time to review it.
"The concern of the industry is that Singapore is not a producing country. It mostly engages in trade. The concern of the industry was how to identify the country of origin of the goods imported from Singapore and how many products does Singapore have as value additions, whether it is 30%, 40%. The concern was how to figure this out. That is why we wanted to review the agreement. We are not avoiding it. we need a little bit of time," he said.
Abeysinghe said the policy of the government regarding free trade agreements is that the government is in favour of free trade agreements.
"Every country has globally gone through free trade agreements. But, our experience with free trade agreements is not so good. The reason is not that the agreement is bad but the concern is whether we had an industrialization strategy and product development strategy to make benefit out of it," he said.