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Minister to head Indian industry team to Sri Lanka

COLOMBO: The Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, is arriving here on Sunday on a three-day official visit for interaction with his interlocutors here on investment opportunities for Indian companies in Sri Lanka.

The Minister is leading a high level delegation of senior representatives of a number of leading Indian textile, IT and infrastructure companies including Reliance, L&T, Mahindra and Mahindra, Aditya Birla Group, Indo-Rama, Vardhman, Arvind Mills, IOC, Quatrro, Virtusa and others.

In the course his stay here, the Minister along with the delegation, would hold talks with Navin Dissanayake, the Sri Lankan Minister for Investment Promotion and with the Sri Lankan Board of Investment.

This would be the third SAARC country to be visited by the Minister, after Bangladesh and the Maldives, in pursuit of closer economic engagement of India with her neighbours.

The Minister is also expected to call on other Sri Lankan Ministers to review the implementation of the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement that came into force in March 2000 and to discuss the current status of the India-Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) on which 11 rounds of negotiations have been held since February 2005.

CEPA covers trade in goods, services and investment.

Indications are that the Minister would make a courtesy call on Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremenayake in the course of his stay.

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