Indo-Sri Lanka Trade in Services: FTA II and Beyond

Motivated by the New Age FTAs, India and Sri Lanka have evinced an interest to widen the scope of the existing bilateral Free Trade Agreement in goods by including the services sector. Given the paucity of any comprehensive study on trade in services between the two countries in the service sector, the proposed study aims at filling this lacuna. In the context of the proposed “FTA II and Beyond”, the objective of this study is to assess the trade potential and areas of mutual co-operation between India and Sri Lanka in the services sector. More specifically, the study will identify the service sectors of bilateral trade interest and identify, classify and quantify the domestic and external barriers to such trade. Quantification of barriers in terms of their trade restrictiveness would be used both for suggesting regulatory, institutional and other reform measures and as a basis for negotiating removal of barriers in the course of a probable FTA. The study would be based on an extensive survey to be carried out in India and Sri Lanka . As both India and Sri Lanka are members of WTO the proposed study on bilateral trade in services would be carried out in a framework compliant with the GATS.