Today nations have moved / are moving away from "trade protectionism" that prevailed few decades ago and have embraced in principal that "global trade" is good for all provided that it is conducted in an orderly manner governed by agreed upon set of laws/rules which certainly should contain clear arbitration procedures to settle disputes.

Today the word "trade" is not limited to "goods" but also include "services and investments" and in its purest form will include an individual's ability to provide skill based services through mobility across borders without any restrictions. The Utopia is a free global market where goods, services, investments, and worker mobility happen based on the fundamental law of free market theory - supply and demand - driven quality / price / service to the consumer through fair global competition and the availability of border less markets ( world, regions, countries) to suppliers from small / big / developing / developed countries.

At the highest global level, international trade is governed by the World Trade Organization ( WTO) started in 1995 . which is the successor to The General Agreement on Tariff and Trade ( GATT) that existed between ( 1948-1994).

However, today many countries in order to fast track their individual or regional trade interests have spun off other levels of international trade agreements such as Free Trade Agreements ( FTA) made famous by the first FTA between USA, Canada and Mexico ( North America FTA) in early 90s and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements ( CEPA) made famous by the most successful one of its kind between Canada and the European Union. A comprehensive but easy to understand article about the history of international trade, types of agreements, and the current status of specific agreements ( such as the proposed India Sri Lanka CEPA) is given below and the casual reader is urged to at least browse through it here.

To give a quick synopsis of where India Sri Lanka CEPA stands, I have an excerpt from a Working Paper from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade; " India-Sri Lanka signed free trade agreement (FTA) in 1998. Looking at the success of the agreement both the countries engaged themselves in negotiating a ‘Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement’ (CEPA), which include trade, investment, and technology transfer etc. The CEPA negotiation was initiated in 2005 and concluded in July 2008, after thirteen rounds of negotiations. CEPA comprise of four objectives; widening and deepening of the existing FTA, establishing an agreement on trade in services, including measures for promotion of investment in each other's countries and enhancing economic cooperation.  Both sides had decided to sign the CEPA during the 15th SAARC Summit held in Colombo but due to reservations expressed by Government of Sri Lanka, the agreement has still not been signed. Reservations were based on two broad concerns: about the nature of the CEPA itself and that the drawbacks in the FTA should be dealt with first, prior to embarking on a CEPA." Please read the full article here.

Who has benefited during the 15 years since signing the FTA - India or Sri Lanka? Will it getter better or worse for Sri Lanka if the proposed CEPA is signed? Will India get even a bigger share of the Goods Trade and even in the Service Sector that gets officially opened up under the proposed CEPA? Will free mobility of skilled personnel from India swallow what ever the jobs we have because our internal laws are not in place to mandate national registration for professionals ( except for doctors and lawyers)?

The crux of the India Sri Lanka CEPA from a Sri Lankan Perspective is articulated better than I could in a link - a recorded radio program on Neth FM on Sept 12, 2015: You should listen it here.

Please login to IESL forum Ask an Engineer, to learn about proposed India Sri Lanka CEPA and more importantly share your thoughts and influence/support our Council and The Government to do what is right for Sri Lanka now thinking of the future.

Forum Topic : http://www.iesl.lk/page-1560841/3516549#3522747

I am a learner of this subject matter myself and have decided to play an active role in any way I can. I wish all of us wisdom to take educated, timely ( now ), actions on India Sri Lanka CEPA thinking what is best for our future generations.

Eng. Arjuna Manamperi
M-2062
Council Member/Chair MESC