UK parliament discusses enhancing bilateral trade with Sri Lanka

Britain's House of Lords is discussing plans to enhance bilateral trade with Sri Lanka, which the former sees as one of its most important bilateral trading partners.

Currently, the UK is one of the top five investors in Sri Lanka and its number one EU trading partner.

The balance of trade is in favor of Si Lanka, and according to Thursday's deliberations on the issue, calls have been made to reddress this imbalance.

According to a Colombo Page report, the focus was on further modernization and exploration of potential opportunities for British businesses, which the House of Lords participants felt is vast.

Speaking at the short debate, Lord Naseby, a long-time supporter of Sri Lanka said "With a Free Trade Agreement with China to be signed shortly adding to the existing FTAs with Pakistan, India, South Asia and Asia Pacific, Sri Lanka could act as a regional hub to over 3 billion potential customers."

The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Lord Livingston said Sri Lanka is actually the highest rated country in South Asia in the World Bank?s ease of doing business index but there are opportunities to improve the position still further.

The UK Government will also look to hold more trade missions to Sri Lanka so that companies can understand the scale of the opportunities, as they are indeed immense not only within the country itself, but also as a regional hub, he said.