India to invest $2 billion in Sri Lanka

India is going to invest 2 billion dollars in Sri Lanka in the next three-four years. It was announced by Union Minister for State (MoS) Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman during her visit to Sri Lanka.
She had visited Sri Lanka for talks on the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) to discuss the terms of the agreement.

About Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA)

• ETCA agreement seeks to boost cooperation in scientific expertise, technical areas and research amongst institutions between India and Sri Lanka.
• It also seeks to boost standards of goods and services to compete on global market and improve opportunities for manpower training and human resource development.
• The ETCA initiative follows unfruitful negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between two countries.
• Objectives of ETCA: (i) Strengthen and advance the economic, trade, investment and technology cooperation. (ii) Promote further liberalization of trade in goods, trade in services and gradually establish transparent, fair and facilitative trading, investment and investment protection mechanisms (iii) Establish a cooperation mechanism and expand areas of economic cooperation.

Background
The bilateral trade between India and Sri Lanka in 2015 was 4.6 billion dollars, of which Indian exports were valued at about 4 billion dollars and Sri Lankan exports 645 million dollars.  India and Sri Lanka already have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) since 1998.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2016