Monday, 22nd September 2014
H.D.H Senewiratne (hsenewiratne@yahoo.com)
Indonesia is going to be one of the biggest and emerging economies in the world and given that situation Sri Lanka should consider to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in future to reap real economic benefits,Sri Lanka-Indonesia Business Council (SLIBC) President Jatinder Biala said.
“Since Indonesia is part of ASEAN and therefore Asian region will become a major economic powerhouse in the world. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to have an FTA with Indonesia to achieve Sri Lankan economic targets in future,” Biala told the Daily News Business.
He said Sri Lanka is now considering Chinese Indian, EU and US markets but now the time is right to seriously consider to sign FTA and develop bilateral trade with Indonesia, which has a lot of potential to become an economic powerhouse in Asia.
Biala said the Council’s objective is to promote trade, services and business between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, particularly exports from Sri Lanka.
In 2011 there was a significant growth in bilateral trade activities; exports to Indonesia have grown by 25 percent in the year and at the same time imports from Indonesia to Sri Lanka have also increased by 62 percent.
Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have also increased.
“This indicates that Indonesia has become one of the biggest trading partners of Sri Lanka and the SLIBC is very pleased to be a part of that growing relationship,” he said.
Biala also highlighted the importance of a strong business council which needs a strong foundation with multiple corporate entities and right direction which will make all the collective efforts to get more corporate entities into same rank and with that it will mutually benefit the members and the Business Council.
He also said that since the China is going to be expensive due to high economic growth and as a second option Sri Lanka should look at the Indonesia as the second option to promote trade and investment into Sri Lanka.
Indonesian Embassy promotes Trade and Investment between the two countries.
It was emphasized that the challenge of achieving US$ 1 billion bi-lateral trade by 2015 could be furnished through the cooperation of the business community of Sri Lanka and Indonesia, he said.
“The total value of the trade volume of both countries is US$ 450 million and not favourable to Sri Lanka. Therefore, Sri Lanka could look at more export opportunities to increase exports,” he said. Biala said Indonesia has gradually become a promising and fastest growing countries, not only in Asia but also in the world.
“Although the expected growth rate in other fast developing Asean giants, China and India are lower than expected, Indonesia has managed to continuously maintain the expected growth. Indonesia is a large country with vast natural resources still untapped. In addition Sri Lanka and Indonesia share plenty of similarities in their culture and climatic conditions,” he said.
The Sri Lanka-Indonesia Business Council (SLIBC)functions under the aegis of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce to promote trade, investment, tourism and services between the two countries.
From : http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=business/sri-lanka-can-benefit-fta-indonesia-biala
