India’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Y. K. Sinha said he was surprised by opposition to Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the two governments, stating there was no empirical basis for its rejection.
“They state a large number of Indians would come to Sri Lanka including barbers, lawyers and professors even and that they would take over Sri Lanka... These claims are amusing and completely untrue,” said the High Commissioner at the Annual Research Symposium 2015 held in Colombo.
“What surprises me the most is that there is no empirical research to lay the proper facts before the people here,” he added.
Numerous Sri Lankan political parties and Sinhala nationalist groups have declared their opposition to such a deal.
See our earlier post: Opposition to CEPA mounts (13 Sep 2015)
Last month Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe denied discussing the CEPA trade agreement during his visit to India.
Also see our earlier post: Sri Lanka’s Indophobia (07 Aug 2015)