India has publicly rebutted a Chinese embassy claim that China is Sri Lanka’s No. 1 trading partner, with Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha releasing fresh trade figures to assert that New Delhi remains the largest counterparty.
Jha cited data from India’s Department of Commerce showing India-Sri Lanka bilateral trade turnover reached US$ 6.407 billion in 2025. The clarification came after Yu Jing, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in India, used Central Bank of Sri Lanka data to claim that China-Sri Lanka trade had risen to US$ 5.5 billion in 2025.
According to the figures shared by Jha, Sri Lankan exports to India grew from US$ 689 million in 2020 to US$ 1.53 billion in 2025, and exports to India have multiplied more than 30 times since the Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement entered into force in 2000. India is now the second-largest destination for Sri Lankan exports, the High Commissioner said.
The unusually direct exchange — a Chinese embassy in a third country making a numerical claim about Sri Lanka, and India’s mission in Colombo answering it on the same data — reflects how openly the two Asian powers now compete for narrative ground in Sri Lanka’s economic diplomacy. Both sides drew on different official data sources, with the Chinese figure pulled from CBSL releases and the Indian figure from the Department of Commerce.
The dispute lands amid a busy bilateral cycle for Colombo: a recent India-Sri Lanka summit on trade and connectivity, the ADB-backed Pan-Asia grid link and an active Trincomalee energy-hub agenda. On the China side, recent activity includes BRI tourism cooperation with Sichuan and a Chinese Ambassador’s fuel-supply pledge during the worst of the Hormuz crisis.
Source: Newswire.
