Finalise ETCA with India before other trade deals: Ranil

Monday, 26 October 2026 06:30 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

EX- President Ranil Wickremesinghe has called for Sri Lanka to finalise the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India as its first trade priority, ahead of free trade agreements (FTAs) with other Asian economies.

“Our first one is that we have to do the agreement with India,” Wickremesinghe said, noting that the agreement was currently suspended. He was speaking at the 50th webinar organised by the Daily FT, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), and the International Chamber of Commerce Sri Lanka, together with Women in Management (WIM), the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors, the MBA Alumni Association of the University of Colombo, and Pioneer Institute of Business and Technology, on Saturday.

Asked whether India would change the global order, Wickremesinghe said that while the order currently appeared to rest on the US, China, and Russia, India could not be ignored. “It’s going to be the third-largest GDP in the world. It’s a military power and it is the dominant power in the Indian Ocean. So at some stage, India has to come in,” he said. The US, he noted, had also improved relations with Pakistan, and how it balanced these relationships would matter.

On managing relations with India and China, he said Sri Lanka and India were close and should be closer, keeping the spirit of the exchange of letters between Rajiv Gandhi and J.R. Jayewardene that neither country would do anything to harm the security of the other. Relations had evolved since the time of Emperor Ashoka according to developments in the world, he said.

“Now, it’s not a question of India or China, it’s how India and China manage their relationships,” he said. With China set to enter the Bay of Bengal, Myanmar and Bangladesh would become places of competing influence, he added, noting that India was strengthening its friendship with Myanmar and that both India and China, as BRICS members, would have to reach an understanding on how the region developed.