Reject The ETCFA: Joint Opposition

February 19, 2016 

The “Joint Opposition” has today called upon the Sri Lankan business community, professionals, and the general public to oppose foreignisation of the Sri Lankan economy.

Dinesh

“The proposed Economic and Technical Cooperation Framework Agreement (ETCFA) which is vague and has no specific provisions.” the group said in a statement.

The Joint opposition said; “The government has not tabled the proposed pact with India in parliament. Furthermore parliament has not been informed that the government has granted approval to set up an Indian ambulance service in this country with state patronage from both sides. Minister Malik Samarawickrama did tell the media that the government would be opening up the IT and maritime engineering services to Indian professionals but he did not say anything about pre-hospitalisation health care. The Joint Opposition met on Thursday 18 February 2016, and after due discussion we thus place our views on this matter of utmost national importance before the people.”

We publish below the statement in full:

The proposed ETCA with India

The government intends entering into an Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ECTA) with India. The previously proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India had to be abandoned due to the lack of public support. The government has not revealed the provisions of the new agreement to the public and only a select few have the draft. According to the latest draft of this agreement, we understand that what is proposed is in reality not an Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement as originally thought, but an Economic and Technical Cooperation Framework Agreement (ETCFA) which only sets a ‘framework’ for future agreements.

The agreements that are to be entered into later under the framework of the ETCFA include an agreement on trade in goods, an agreement on trade in services and an agreement on investment – the same components that made up the old CEPA. The difference this time however is that the ETCFA does not have specific provisions relating to any of these areas and the specifics are to be worked out only after the ETCFA is signed.

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