FTA has benefited India, Lanka: ILCCI

The Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement, has brought many benefits to both the nations, enabling two-way investments in many key sectors, a top industry body has said.
"A vast number of top Indian companies continue to show immense interest in investing in Sri Lanka in many major sectors. It has also not been one-sided and our own companies have found prospects to invest in the Indian market and be benefited by it", Vish Govindasdamy, president, Indo Lanka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ILCCI) said while addressing its fifth annual general meeting over the weekend here.
"We have no doubt - as we have been saying year on year - that, the Free Trade Agreement has brought many benefits to both India and Sri Lanka.

"The ups and downs under the FTA are being addressed time and again by both sides and even though certain issues may take some time to be settled to everyone's satisfaction, it is an encouraging factor that problems faced by the business community are being given a fair hearing by the authorities concerned", he said.
The Free Trade Agreement between India and Sri Lanka was the first-ever bilateral trade agreement for both countries, signed in 1998 and enforced since 2000.
At the same event, Indian High Commissioner Y K Sinha said that the ILCCI provides a key common platform to companies to promote and contribute to the growth of business relations between Sri Lanka and India.

"I sincerely hope that ILCCI will continue to serve as a symbiotic link that binds our two countries and will further enhance our substantive economic engagement in terms of mutually beneficial trade and investment, thereby creating a win-win situation for both countries", he said.
Representatives of Sri Lanka's top corporates were elected to the committee of ILCCI for the year 2013-2014, at the meeting.