ILCCI, a platform to promote trade

The ILCCI provides a common platform to companies to promote and contribute to the growth of business between Sri Lanka and India, said the High Commissioner of India Y.K. Sinha at the Annual General Meeting of the Indo-Lanka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ILCCI).

The Indo-Lanka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ILCCI) which was set up in 2006 under the aegis of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, held its fifth Annual General Meeting last month.

He said, "I 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.

"The past two decades have seen momentous changes sweeping the world. For the past four years, the global economy has been struggling with an unprecedented crisis which had a domino effect across the world. No country big or small has remained insulated from these changes and even today the situation in Europe and America remains fragile," he said.

"However, in this bleak economic environment, Asia, Africa and Latin America have demonstrated remarkable resilience. In the emerging multi-polar world order, the new growth poles lie in the Southern hemisphere," Sinha said.

"In the backdrop of this changing global economic architecture, we need to reinvent and redefine our relationship.

Let us take a leaf out of the experience of our neighbours in East Asia who have had the wisdom to join an integrated production value chain as part of ASEAN," he said.

"ASEAN can serve as a model for us as it effectively demonstrates how Nation States with as diverse levels of development as Singapore and Laos can come together for mutually rewarding economic partnerships. A dialogue is now under way for creating a Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership in East Asia, which will have the ASEAN and six other dynamic economies, China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand," the High Commissioner said. The President of ILCCI, Vish Govindasamy, said, "A vast number of top Indian companies continue to show interest in investing in Sri Lanka in many major sectors. It has not been one sided and our own companies have invested in the Indian market and benefited by it.

" The Free Trade Agreement has brought many benefits to India and Sri Lanka. The ups and downs under the FTA, are being discussed 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 hearing by the authorities concerned".