ECONOMYNEXT - A trade union representing workers in export industrial zones have called for greater disclosure of a planned trade deal with India and also deplored 'threatening' statements made by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
"We are fully aware that signing of bi-lateral agreements with India are nothing new," Free Trade Zones and General Employees Union Chief Anton Marcus said in a statement.
"We also accept that we cannot ignore the presence of a powerful neighbour in our existence."
The Union said the new administration came to power promising to uphold democracy and anyone had a right to protest and dissent.
"We strongly object and condemn… the high handed threatening statements of the Prime Minister as head of such a democratic government," the statement said.
The union said it had a right to all information regarding the ETCA.
While free trade deals can hit the profits of businessmen who sell high priced goods and exploit the poor and working classes under cover of import duties, analysts say they do not affect export industries which are already efficient.
Freer trade improves the lives of all people and the poor the most. That is why countries that opened trade unilaterally like Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan from the 1860s without using poor consumers as bargaining chips with other countries prospered quickly.
Even the entry of foreign workers can boost investments and economic activity by filling skill or labour shortages quickly.
However the current administration has said that there were no plans to open up professions.
In Sri Lanka many of the imports from India is still taxed at high levels. These include motor cars, motor cycles, three wheelers and scooters that make up most of a so-called 'trade deficit' with India.
In South Asia, protectionist businesses with political clout have managed to keep import duties high. In former communist states like Vietnam free trade pushed up investments and living standards quickly.
Analysts say the lack of existing private business helped such government's easily open trade for the working class. Most factory working girls in Vietnam owns a scooter.
Food prices are also low in Vietnam which has become a net rice exporter after markets were freed and land tenures of farmers were firmed up.
Even Karl Marx, a collectivist, did not support protectionism, which gave artificial profits to crony businessmen and landowners, while free trade was clearly to benefit of working classes.
"To burden foreign corn with protective duties is infamous, it is to speculate on the hunger of the people," Marx said in 1848 in Brussels after the repeal of Corn Law brought food prices down in Britain propelling the country further on the path of an industrial powerhouse.
"In a word, the free trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favour of free trade.
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