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India, Sri Lanka FMs meet, discuss skill development projects
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- India and Sri Lanka on Thursday discussed the “entire gamut of bilateral ties”, during talks between visiting Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Relations, Skills Development, Employment and Labour Relations, Dinesh Gunawardena and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in New Delhi on Thursday.
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- Timing of the visit: The visit by the Sri Lankan Minister, his first visit abroad after taking charge, comes after the visit by Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in November as “a follow up” to his discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- No discussion on Infra and ETCA: The officials declined to comment on whether the new Sri Lankan Foreign Minister had discussed taking forward some of the commitments made by the previous Sri Lankan government on infrastructure projects in Trincomalee and Colombo as well as the Northern region, or about taking forward the Economic and Technical Cooperation (ETCA) preferential trade agreement.
- What is ETCA?
(1) The Economic and Technology Co-operation Agreement (ETCA) is a proposed diplomatic arrangement that seeks to add to the existing free trade agreement between India and Sri Lanka.
(2) It is formulated to deal with trade-in services and the service sector and it seeks to emulate freedom-of-movement system and a single market.
(3) Once the ETCA comes into effect, Indian investments will flow into Sri Lanka to make the island’s production facilities part of the Indian and international value chain.
Source
The Hindu