Sri Lanka, Feb. 28 -- Thailand became the second Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership economy to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with Sri Lanka, following the FTA signed earlier with Singapore.

A major goal of an FTA is to lower trade costs by reducing border tariffs and eliminating behind-the-border barriers for competitively traded products.

This article assesses the coverage and potential of the Sri Lanka-Thailand FTA (SLTFTA) tariff liberalisation in increasing bilateral trade.

Coverage of SLTFTA

The salient features of the SLTFTA tariff schedules include immediate concessions for a limited number of products, a 15-year phased tariff reduction plan for most of the products and uncommitted products, which are excluded from...