Jan 31, Colombo: Minister of International Trade, Prof. G.L. Peiris reveals that the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India will include trading services, in addition to the manufacturing sectors.

Speaking at a seminar held in Colombo on Tuesday, the Minister told that the inclusion is vital to drive the economy.

Sri Lanka and India are focusing on 12 main service sectors that would be further filtered into 155 sectors including ICT, banking, insurance, engineering, construction, education, and tourism that are among the many others. The Minister underscored that whatever the commodities that are traded internationally need trading services such as banking and insurance to make the transaction happen. Therefore, he pointed out that the service sector has become the most important driver of the world economy.

The seminar was organized under the title “Export and Import of Professional Services- Opportunities for Engineers”. The objective of the seminar was to initiate lengthy discussion on the trading services to the intended agreement.

Sri Lanka has been considering expansion of the free trade agreement with India into a CEPA since 2004. The two countries have so far conducted 11 rounds of negotiations but yet to be finalizing the terms of the agreement. At the next rounds of talks scheduled to be held in March this year it is expected that the two countries would be able to present the final draft of the agreement.