by Ifham Nizam
"The Government Of Sri Lanka will hopefully sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States of America in August 2004", said Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake at a discussion on the first Export, Trade and Investment Forum which took place at the Export Development Board (EDB) on Monday.

Following Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to US, the US Government gave a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). This agreement is very favourable upto now. Karunanayake believes that this would have a favourable impact on the FTA with USA.

The minister strongly feels that the Sri Lankan government must open up markets with India and USA, in turn, this will lead to trade relations with many countries. That is our main intention, the minister added.

He also said that FTA with China too will be beneficial, and plans are afoot to start FTA with many other countries shortly.

Meanwhile, 23 matters were taken up at the forum of which nearly 20 were solved, others were left out as the relevant participants were not present.

Minister Karunanayake requested a few participants not to misuse the forum for petty matters, he also asked the EDB Board to select topics which were relevant to the forum.