Sitharaman meets Sri Lankan president, assures help in matters related to debt restructuring

New Delhi, Nov 3: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe during her visit to the island nation and discussed a host of issues.

After the meeting, in a post late on Thursday night, the Finance Ministry informed that Wickremesinghe acknowledged the multi-faceted support to Sri Lanka provided by India during the economic crisis.

Sitharaman stated that India would continue to collaborate with the Sri Lankan Government on matters pertaining to debt restructuring.

They discussed India-Sri Lanka joint initiatives in the economic and commercial sphere.

Sitharaman highlighted that the 'Vision document on Economic Partnership' adopted during his visit to India in July 2023 will further strengthen the countries’ maritime, air, digital, energy and people-to-people connectivity.

The Finance Minister thanked the Sri Lankan president for inviting her as a guest of honour at the 200th anniversary celebrations of the arrival of Indian origin Tamils to Sri Lanka and complimented him for the excellent organisation of the event.

President Wickremesinghe emphasised on Sri Lanka’s vision to build a new market economy with focus on tourism, sustainability, agricultural modernisation and digitisation and welcomed collaboration with India in these areas.

Sitharaman offered that India could become the lead partner in the initiative through technical collaboration.

She also expressed satisfaction on the progress made in recent negotiations on the economic and technology cooperation agreement and UPI based digital payments and shared her views on investment based support and bilateral investment treaty.

They also had discussions on cooperation in Inter-grid connectivity, aviation, power projects, oil exploration in Mannar.

In continued tradition of friendly relations between India and Sri Lanka, Sitharaman and Wickremesinghe witnessed the exchange of Letter of Exchange and Acceptance on Memorandum of Understanding for promotion of Buddhism ties between India and Sri Lanka.

They also witnessed exchange of MoU on solar electrification of religious places in Sri Lanka. For this project, India will allocate Rs 82.40 crore out of the government of India grant assistance of Rs 107.47 crore earmarked for the promotion of Buddhist ties.