By Chandeepa Wettasinghe
The special gazette released yesterday notifying the subjects allocated for ministries showed that the powers to negotiate international trade deals have been kept with the Industry and Commerce Ministry despite the creation of a specific ministry for international trade.  

“Even after they have created a ministry concerning international trade, the negotiating powers still remain with the Commerce Department, which still falls under the Industry and Commerce Ministry,” a well-known economist who did not wish to be named said.

The International Trade and Investments Ministry was believed to have created upon the recommendation of Sri Lankan-born economist Professor Razeen Sally, who is said to be regularly advising Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on economic policy matters.

“One has to think about retooling the government in order to get things done. The Industry and Commerce Ministry is not competent to do all of this. After the election, the Prime Minister should think of creating a new ministry called International Trade and Investment and some of the functions of the Industry and Commerce Ministry would come here,” Prof. Sally said.

He was making the comments at Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2015, which was held this August, in the presence of the Premier, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake and Industry and Commerce Minister Rishard Bathiudeen.

Prof. Sally’s rationale was that foreign direct investments (FDIs) cannot be separated from international trade.

“Trade will then be coupled with investment because you can’t think of coherent, sensible 21st century trade policies today in which FDIs and trade are not mentioned in the same breath,” he said.

Senior economist Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy too shared similar sentiments, saying Sri Lanka should attract FDIs through the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India and the free trade agreement (FTA) with China to sell goods funded by them back to them.

The gazette notification released showed that International Trade and Investments Minister Malik Samarawickrama was only trusted with the Board of Investment (BOI), Exports Development Board (EDB), Import-Export Control Department and Mahapola fund.

The BOI is the only institution of impact in the International Trade and Investments Ministry, as the EDB is limited to collecting statistics, providing advice and conducting training and small and medium enterprise (SME) empowerment and the Import-Export Control Department is limited to providing licences for sensitive industries.

However, how the Mahapola Scholarship Fund is involved with international trade and investments is not yet clear.

The Verite Research team recently hoped that the duties relating to commercial attaches—currently incompetent and ineffective—in Sri Lankan embassies abroad would be transferred to the Foreign Ministry for Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Harsha de Silva to convert into a formidable export-oriented diplomacy. However, those duties too remain within the Commerce Department.