Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Dr Sarath Amunugama, recently organized a meeting with Belgium Ambassador and discussed issues of allowing foreign trade and investment in Sri Lanka.
The meeting was attended by Pierre Pringiers, Chairman of Loadestar, a major investor in Sri Lanka and Honorary Consul of Belgium in Sri Lanka.
Here, Mr Sarath expressed the desire for having Belgium companies based in India to extend their domain to Sri Lanka as well. This proposal was quite approachable since Free Trade Agreement between India and Sri Lanka supports investment in both the countries.
Belgium Ambassador essentially aimed at strengthening bilateral relations within the European Union framework and agreed that Sri Lanka was one of the significant trading partners of EU availing the benefits of the EU-GSP+. According to this agreement, Sri Lankan goods can have free access to European markets.
Mr Sarath also stated that Sri Lanka heavily depended on foreign trade and investment for the development of its economy. Strengthening relations with Belgium was one of the policies to further the objective.
Since both Belgium and Sri Lanka have a good number of SMEs, the ambassador suggested collaboration by means of joint ventures. Belgium companies have already made investment in the country in the diamond cutting sector and plans of future tie-ups and trade is still under consideration.
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