Sri Lankan speaker of parliament Chamal Rajapakse (R) and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari (L) talk at the parliament in Colombo on November 29, 2010. - Photo by AFP.
COLOMBO: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called for a barter agreement with Sri Lanka on Monday to boost trade between the two countries.
Zardari, on a visit to the island, told legislators that they should switch to exchanging their goods and services rather than depend on dollar-denominated import-export trade that drew on foreign reserves.
“If you have anything in abundance we can trade (with that),” Zardari told the Sri Lanka-Pakistan parliamentary friendship association. “We have an abundance of cement, you have tea and other commodities that we can exchange.” Zardari, who arrived in Colombo Saturday, held closed-door talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse and discussed increasing trade and defence cooperation, the Sri Lankan president’s office said Monday.
