Sri Lanka will seek Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Oman, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament while presenting the 2027 Budget on Thursday.
“We hope to enter into Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Oman,” the President said, according to EconomyNext.
He set the Gulf agreements alongside a broader push to update existing trade deals and sign new ones, with the aim of connecting Sri Lanka to global trade networks:
- The Cabinet has already appointed a committee of officials to expand the existing free trade agreement with India
- Attention has been directed toward a new free trade agreement with China
- An application has been made to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
EconomyNext’s transcript renders the bloc’s acronym as “RCDEP”; the agreement the President described is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the 15-member Asia-Pacific trade bloc that came into force in 2022.
EU-funded trade project
The government will also implement the Sri Lanka–European Union Sustainable Trade and Economic Integration Project over 2027–2030, under an EU grant of Rs 3,430 million, to promote export competitiveness, export diversification and sustainable production.
“So, we can build a very close relationship with the European market… Furthermore, following a feasibility study, we will work toward entering into new free trade agreements with other countries,” the President said.
Context
The UAE is already among Sri Lanka’s larger trading partners and a major destination for Sri Lankan migrant workers, which gives a Gulf CEPA a services and labour-mobility dimension that a goods-only FTA would not carry. Sri Lanka’s trade relationship with the EU currently runs through GSP+ preferences rather than a bilateral agreement.
Sourcing note
EconomyNext was the only verified newsroom to have filed on the trade section of the speech at the time of writing — on budget day outlets split the speech into separate line-item reports.
Not reported
The filing does not give a timeline for the UAE or Oman negotiations, say whether talks have formally begun, indicate when the RCEP application was lodged or what stage it has reached, or name the committee members working on the India FTA expansion.