Sri Lankan President and Pakistani Prime Minister discuss strengthening economic relations and defence co-operation
Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi have reportedly discussed about strengthening economic relations and defence co-operation between the two countries during Sirisena’s recent visit to Pakistan.
A statement by President Sirisena’s office has stated that the two leaders had “a lengthy discussion on strengthening economic and trade relations as well as defence training programmes between the two countries.”
The two leaders had reportedly discussed a billion dollar target of economic co-operation between the two countries.
Prime Minister Abbasi had said Pakistan was willing to provide their experiences in the fields of oil and natural gas to Sri Lanka.
President Sirisena had also talked about recent anti-Muslim nationalism in Sri Lanka by Buddhist groups.
President was quoted as saying “that a certain group attempted to use this incident a harmful manner and further said that he regrets regarding this incident and will not allow any room to reoccur this kind of incidents in the future.”
OSL take:
Relations between Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been on a progressive path and the commitment by both heads of state to further develop economic ties between the two nations is an encouraging sign for foreign businesses/investors looking at doing business in Sri Lanka. Such business endeavors could be also benefited by the existing free trade agreement (FTA) between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Foreign companies/investors could use Sri Lanka as a base to do business with Sri Lanka using the advantegous position of the island nation.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20180326/Z_9 |