sri lanka and India recently agreed to expand trade and investment ties in the seventh round of negotiations under the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (cepa) in Colombo. cepa is an effort to strengthen the Free Trade Agreement (fta) between the two countries but it is already running into trouble with some contentious issues awaiting resolution.

India's restrictions on the imports of vanaspati, bakery shortenings and pepper from Sri Lanka were some of the issues that came up during the recent negotiations (see