Negotiations on ETCA have just begun, with only one round of meetings having taken place so far and that at the Joint Secretary level, Ministry of Commerce officials said.

But not much of publicity has been given to this two day meeting in Colombo between Sri Lankan secretary level officials and the four-member Indian delegation led by Bhupinder Singh Bhalla, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce.

The Sri Lanka government has conducted the meeting as a closed door meeting due to the pressure of local professional organizations, business community and civic organizations is being mounting against the signing of this agreement.

Indian Minister of State for Commerce, Nirmala Sitharaman, who was to visit Sri Lanka on August 25 for a short visit at the invitation of the Sri Lankan Minister of International Trade, Malik Samarawickrama, cancelled her visit on account of pressing engagements in New Delhi.

But this has no connection or impact on the on-going negotiations between India and Sri Lanka on the controversial ETCA, officials said.

Business community and exporters were not given adequate time to make their submissions to be considered for inclusion in the ECTA, a chamber of Commerce official said adding that it is difficult to finalize the agreement by the end of this year.

Even though the stated objective of ETCA is not to open up Sri Lanka to Indian services personnel, there is a widespread and deep rooted fear among professionals in Sri Lanka, that India will eventually find ways of exporting their services personnel to Sri Lanka and take over local jobs by offering their services at a lesser cost.

But the Sri Lankan government has assured the professional bodies in the island that government would ensure that the floodgates are not opened to Indian professionals.

India itself is planning to send professionals only into the IT sector and Ship building, where there is a need for expertise and higher levels of training. These are also sectors that could boost Sri Lanka’s exports. Sri Lankan IT bodies claim that they can do without Indian expertise.