斯里兰卡与中国讨论自由贸易协定

 

Sri Lanka, China to hold discussions on FTA

Sri Lanka and China will hold high level discussions in June on the possibility of signing a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Sri Lanka's Ministry of Industry and Commerce said in a statement here on Monday.

"China is a promising market for Sri Lanka's select, premium products such as gems, and an important round of bilateral talks on Sri Lanka-China FTA is scheduled for next month," the statement quoted Rishard Bathiudeen, minister of Industry and Commerce, as saying.

The minister said that Sri Lanka was committed to pursuing an outward oriented trade regime following the principles of the World Trade Organization, with a view to enhancing overseas market access for its export products and achieving greater integration into the world economy.

Sri Lanka has already signed free trade agreements with India and Pakistan and both the agreements allow more than 4000 product lines to be exported to these markets at zero duty.

"Sri Lanka actively involves in Joint Economic Commissions and bilateral forums with a number of countries in order to enhance our trade and commercial relations," the minister said.

He added that trade between Sri Lanka and China crossed the 4 billion U.S. dollar mark last year for the first time in the bilateral trade history, surging by 17 percent from 2014's 3.58 billion U.S. dollars.

About 93 percent of last year's total trade was imports from China, mainly iron and steel, fabrics & fibres, cotton and urea fertilizer.

译文如下：

斯里兰卡与中国讨论自由贸易协定

斯里兰卡和中国将于6月举行高层讨论会，关于签署双边自由贸易协定(FTA)的可能性,斯里兰卡工商部门在周一在一份声明中说。

“中国对于斯里兰卡来说是一个有前途的市场，拥有宝石等优质产品，斯里兰卡与中国自由贸易协定重要的一轮双边会谈定于下个月进行,”声明中引用工商部长Rishard Bathiudeen的话说。

部长说,斯里兰卡致力于在遵循世界贸易组织的原则下，追求外向型的贸易体制,以提高其海外市场准入并实现更好的融入世界经济。

斯里兰卡已经与印度和巴基斯坦签署了自由贸易协议，双方协议允许4000多项产品零关税出口到这些市场。

“斯里兰卡积极参与联合经济委员会以及与一些国家的双边论坛,以提高我们的贸易和商业关系,”部长说。

他补充说，去年斯里兰卡和中国间的贸易额首次跨过了40亿美元大关，比2014年激增17%。