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| Sunday, 11 December 2005 |
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Lanka to sign three Bilateral Trade Agreements by Surekha Galagoda Sri Lanka will sign Bilateral Trade Agreements (BTAs) with Egypt, Singapore and USA in the near future said Economic Advisor to President Ajith Nivard Cabraal addressing a workshop on BTAs for South Asian Journalists organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), UNDP and the South Asian Centre for Economic Journalists. He said that at present 195 Bilateral Agreements are in force around the globe while the number will increase to 300 by the year 2007. North South Agreements are going beyond trade to include services, labour standards and WTO regulations, he said. Cabraal said that developing countries are in a weaker position when negotiating a BTA which results in the other country gaining from the weaknesses. To eliminate the negative effects to the maximum develop a background whereby all stakeholders are consulted before entering into a BTA, Cabraal said. Director IPS Dr Saman Kelegama said that Multilateral trade agreements existed for ten years in South Asia. First the region introduced SAPTA then SAFTA. BTAs are easy to operate rather than Multi-lateral trade agreements as they deepen and broaden trade integration. They are prolifering BTAs not only in the South Asian region but also outside the region. At present Sri Lanka is considering a BTA with the US and already the TIFA has been signed but in most instances these come at a high cost and they are manifested in different ways such as policy shrinking, high level of IPR protection, commitment to extensively liberalising the services sector and undertakings to commitments to drop monopolies and merger provisions from the competition law. Former Director, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development B. L. Das said that BTAs are looming large on our economies and constraining our policy space. He said that we go for BTAs to widen our economic prospects. Developing countries are asked to give in areas other than trade but we are not getting the expected market space and policy, he said. |
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