{"id":132183,"date":"2023-02-14T15:55:01","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T22:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=132183"},"modified":"2023-02-14T15:55:01","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T22:55:01","slug":"sri-lanka-to-fast-track-trade-pact-with-thailand-amid-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/02\/14\/sri-lanka-to-fast-track-trade-pact-with-thailand-amid-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka to fast-track trade pact with Thailand amid crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><em>Courtesy AP News<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) \u2014 Debt-stricken Sri Lanka is fast-tracking efforts to seal a stalled trade pact with Thailand in order to boost trade and tourism, and improve the foreign currency shortage that has led to its&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/politics-international-monetary-fund-ranil-wickremesinghe-sri-lanka-business-d6dd10555e68672aee418a8975a6e5b5\">worst economic crisis,<\/a>&nbsp;a government minister said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka began talks with Thailand on a free trade agreement in 2016, held two rounds of discussions in 2018, and the latest last month. But government spokesman Bandula Gunawardena said there\u2019s been a huge delay\u201d and Sri Lanka is now determined to sign the agreement before the end of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trade pact aims to boost two-way trade from $550 million to $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka is also in talks with neighbouring India and China to reach trade agreements. The country is bankrupt and has suspended repayment of its $51 billion foreign debt, of which $28 billion must be repaid by 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gunawardena said the agreement with Thailand would help Sri Lanka to boost trade, tourism and investment and help resolve its foreign currency shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a $2.9 billion rescue package over four years. Its completion hinges on assurances on debt restructuring from creditors that include China, India and the Paris Club, a grouping of major creditor nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy AP News COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) \u2014 Debt-stricken Sri Lanka is fast-tracking efforts to seal a stalled trade pact with Thailand in order to boost trade and tourism, and improve the foreign currency shortage that has led to its&nbsp;worst economic crisis,&nbsp;a government minister said on Tuesday. Sri Lanka began talks with Thailand on a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}