ISDS Case Map
Sri Lanka
All Sri Lankan factories producing Vanaspati oil have shut down, after controversial Indian regulations to restrict duty free exports of the vegetable oil to India.
As the country debates the merits and de-merits of free trade agreements (FTAs), an analysis of trade data shows India has been at the receiving end in both the Thai and the Sri Lanka FTAs.
The customs authority is probing the misuse of the Indo-Sri Lanka free trade agreement (FTA), whereby cloves and arecanuts of different origins have come into India recently from Sri Lanka.
The road to US duy-free access could be longer than expected for a series of emerging countries. While Pakistan was recently refused that textiles and apparel benefit from preferential treatment, chances of duty-free access for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Cambodia are progressively fading.
The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Sri Lanka is costing Indian vanaspati-makers a fortune. With the Sri Lankan vanaspati flooding the Indian market, factories are shutting down, rendering hundreds of people jobless.
Singapore is keen on entering into an FTA with Sri Lanka, Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Rohitha Bogollagama said on Wednesday.
Indian government has agreed to provide a 70% tax concession for 2,802 goods exported from Sri Lanka to India, says Minister of Trade, Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Marketing Development Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, appraising the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement as a success to Sri Lanka.
With India signing Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Sri Lanka (1998) and Thailand (2004), its imports from these two countries have gone up by over 300% and 125%, respectively, between 2002-03 and 2004-05. India's exports to Sri Lanka rose by about 47% and that to Thailand by 19% during the same period.
By having preferential access to the two major markets in South Asia - India and Pakistan - Sri Lanka can now position itself as the conduit for Indo-Pakistan trade that has diminished due to political problems centred around the Most Favoured Nation treatment.
