INDIA AND SRI LANKA ECTA (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Economy)

Context: India and Sri Lanka on Friday agreed to start discussions on an Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ECTA) and unveiled plans to cooperate on power, digital payments, connectivity and green energy. 

Key Points

• The ECTA with Sri Lanka will focus on tariff and non-tariff barriers as well as investment rules.
• The agreement seeks to boost cooperation in scientific expertise, technical areas and research amongst institutions between India and Sri Lanka. 
• It also seeks to boost standards of goods and services to compete on global market and improve opportunities for manpower training and human resource development. 

• Objectives of ETCA: 

• Strengthen and advance the economic, trade, investment and technology cooperation. 
• Promote further liberalization of trade in goods, trade in services and gradually establish transparent, fair and facilitative trading, investment and investment protection mechanisms 
• Establish a cooperation mechanism and expand areas of economic cooperation.