CII to lobby with Indian govt. to facilitate visa on-arrival for Lankan businessmen

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is to lobby with the Indian State government to facilitate Sri Lankan businessman to obtain Indian visa on arrival.

Mannish Mohan, Director and head of South and Central Asia  of the CII shared these views with visiting Sri Lankan journalists on Tuesday at their head quarters in New Delhi.

India still blocks Sri Lankan nationals the visa on arrival facility which Sri Lanka had already made the facility available

However, the Confederation of Indian Industry which is the apex body of over 800 Indian companies is of the view that the on-arrival visa facility should at least be given to businessmen in order to enjoy the optimum results especially from the Indo-Lanka free trade facility currently enjoyed by the two countries.

CII say it will lobby the visa-on-arrival issue with the Indian central government in the near future in response to several questions put forward by the journalists.

Ada Derana raised the point that although the existing FTA provided zero duty for Sri Lankan selected items at the time of export to India, the policies of some of the Indian state governments do not provide the same facility which in turn hinders exports to India. There are non-trade barriers that are enforced by certain Indian provincial states that make Sri Lankan exporters vulnerable.

The CII responding to these concerns agreed that current bottlenecks needed to be removed to truly facilitate the FTA.

However, the Indian industries are of the view that lack of awareness among Sri Lankan businessmen about the FTA is also causing many problems in fulfilling the potential of the trade agreement sealed between two countries almost decade ago.

CII is also of the view that the proposed reforms to the Indian tax regime will also streamline the existing bottlenecks.

Currently, Sri Lankan conglomerates such as JKH, MAS, Damro, Ceylon Biscuits are active in India although the CII says the two countries should now move from nearly trade, concentrate on investments and say the reality of CEPA would better benefit both countries.