Sri Lanka and Singapore to sign FTA today

Sri Lanka will sign a free trade agreement with Singapore today, Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama said yesterday.

He told Daily Mirror he would be signing the agreement on behalf of Sri Lanka while Singapore Trade and Industry Minister S. Iswaran will sign on behalf of Singapore. He accompanied Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday.

The Singapore media said the FTA would boost trade between the two countries and provide greater access to Singapore firms to the growing market here.

It said the FTA was a part of Singapore’s determination to sign such agreements with the recent developments in the global trade where the entering into multilateral deals such TPPs had taken a back seat because many countries were keen on protectionism.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in one his twitter messages said Sri Lanka had done hard work to finalise the FTA. “I led a trade mission to Singapore in 2016 to secure a free trade agreement to boost our economy. We will welcome the Singapore Prime Minister to sign that agreement after much hard work,” he said in his message. (Yohan Perera)