Sri Lanka today asked India to open up more ports for export of items like tea and garments under the tariff rate quota (TRQ), deepen concessions for export of garments and relax the rules of origin criteria to give greater access to Sri Lankan products to Indian markets.
The Indian side raised the issue of allowing import of Indian tea for consumption in Sri Lanka and deeper preferential margins for export of bulk cement to Sri Lanka. The issues are to be further examined and finalised in the official level meeting to be held in Colombo in July this year.
At the first joint ministerial committee meeting under India-Sri Lanka free trade agreement (FTA), both sides agreed to form a working group to examine how to include services in the FTA.
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The commerce ministers of both countries agreed that trade in services has become very important in the present circumstances and that there is a need to utilise the core competencies of both the countries especially in the areas of transshipment, tourism and professional services.
"All that we have asked a friendly government of India is that since we have opened up our markets in a positive and stabilised basis, we will appreciate if India reciprocates," Sri Lankan commerce minister Ravi Karnuanayake said after attending the meeting with Indian commerce minister, Murasoli Maran.
Asked about the specific concession that the country had been pitching for, the Sri Lankan minister said that "just because Sri Lanka is not a least developed country, it should not be excluded from the process", in a reference to the concessions given to Bangladesh by India.
"We have certainly asked India for rules of origin for ports to be opened up," he said stating that Sri Lanka had multiple entry points for ports and to that that extent it had opened up.
"We want seven to eight ports including Chennai, Tuticorin (Tamil Nadu) and Vishakapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), to be opened up," Karunanayake said.