Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have decided to conclude an enhanced bilateral economic partnership by the end of this year to allow the free flow of services, investments and technology, in addition to the existing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two nations.
Mr. Wickremesinghe said that closer economic ties can especially boost India’s five southern States and categorically denied there was any military engagement involved in the island nation’s negotiations with China for its “One Road, One Belt” initiative.
“Prime Minister Modi and I decided we must conclude it (the proposed technology and economic co-operation agreement) by the end of this year. This offers a strategic economic advantage to our country and the fastest-growing southern Indian States,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said while speaking at the India Economic Summit hosted by the World Economic Forum and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the capital.
Arguing that Sri Lanka and the five southern States, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, together have a population of 272 million people and a combined gross domestic product of over $500 billion, he said there is room to grow much faster if the two countries work together. “These five States, with Sri Lanka, have an economy, whose GDP is equivalent to that of Sweden,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said.
“We are cognizant that the economic asymmetry between us and India is going to increase in the future, when the latter emerges as a global player in an increasingly multi-polar world,” he noted, reasoning out the need to deepen ties.
Mr. Wickremesinghe has suggested the creation of a larger special zone of economic cooperation around the Bay of Bengal to Mr. Modi, which takes on board Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia in addition to BIMSTEC countries. BIMSTEC stands for Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation and its members are Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.
“Let’s have a whole area around the Bay of Bengal of vibrant economic cooperation and a vibrant one. That’s what we envisage and should work for. The growth is here,” he stated.
Sri Lanka is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Singapore, while India already has comprehensive economic partnership pact with the latter, so there is scope for a trilateral arrangement to boost the three economies, Mr. Wickremesinghe pointed out.
China and Beyond
Seeking to allay India’s concerns about the island nation’s ties with China, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister said they are negotiating an FTA with China under its “One Belt, One road” initiative as it is necessary to make the Chinese investments in the country realise their full potential.
“There’s been a lot of suspicion as to a military element in it. There is none and we have told that very clearly to the Chinese. The Chinese have agreed,” Mr. Wickremesinghe asserted.
He also took a jab at the developed world and said that Asia’s fast growing economies can bail out the world economy. “The rules of globalization were written by the West and the Empire. We have only played by it. At the end of the day, it’s not neoliberalism or free-market or anything else that worked,” he observed.
“Asia will bail the world out, if we are allowed to write the rules. Otherwise we create our own system and deliver (on making our people happy) by building our own markets,” Mr. Wickremesinghe remarked.
