Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that India and Sri Lanka will sign the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement by the end of this year. Addressing the India Economic Summit in New Delhi, Mr Wikremesinghe said, he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi both have agreed on it. He said, the economic asymmetry between Sri Lanka and India will increase in the future. He added that the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement will be further expanded to go beyond trading goods to cover trade in services, investments and technology cooperation.<br/><br/>The Sri Lankan Prime Minister said, the economic and technology cooperation agreement offers a strategic economic advantage to Sri Lanka and the fast-growing southern Indian states. He said, the five southern states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka have a population of 250 million and a combined GDP of 450 billion dollars. He said, with an addition of Sri Lanka 80 billion dollars, the GDP in this sub regional economy will cross $500 billion. Mr Wickremesinghe said, along with the free trade agreement between Sri Lanka and Singapore, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between India and Singapore and the ETCA between India and Sri Lanka will establish a tripartite agreement for trade and investments. <br/><br/>He also floated the idea in a meeting with Mr Modi of getting countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, BIMSTEC countries to be a part of the larger economic partnership. Mr Wickremesinghe also downplayed fears of Sri Lanka's military ties with China around investments in the one belt one road programme that envisages massive Chinese investments in infrastructure building in the island nation. He said, there has been a lot of suspicion that there is a military element to it, but that is not there and they have told this very clearly to the Chinese and they have agreed.