Sri Lanka's president, Maithripala Sirisena has appointed a committee to study the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed with Singapore in January after the Joint Opposition this week reiterated its threat of legal action against it.
A five member committee was appointed yesterday, the Sunday Times reports. Read more here.
Objecting against the FTA, the JO MP Bandula Gunawardene said, "the government has claimed that a gazette notification containing a list of items for which tax and duty will be removed was issued, but such a document cannot be found. Therefore the FTA is illegal."
"The items that are to be free of taxes under the FTA include animal sperm, elephants, tusks, fish species which are banned from being used as trade items, urethras and artifacts," he said. "In short the bio diversity of our country has been handed over to Singapore."
