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Thai investors to develop St. John's and Manning markets

A Thai business delegation visiting Sri Lanka concurrent with the joint council meetings held on Wednesday has expressed their interest in developing Colombo's main vegetable sales centre, Manning market and St. John's Fish Market to the modern standards.

This transpired when the delegation including Director General for South Asian, Middle East and African Affairs of the Thai Foreign Ministry, Snanchart Devahastin, vice President of Thai Contractor's Association Viboon Sriprasert and a member of The Federation of Thai Industries Sopon Wichitrakon met Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake recently at the Ministry to discuss possibilities of bilateral trade prospectus.

Mr. Devahastin said that they had visited the Manning and St. John's markets and identified several key areas of infrastructure development, which would be attractive to their developers.

He said that Thai investors are willing to introduce to Sri Lanka advanced post harvest, food handling and storage technologies, which are available in their country.

Mr. Devahastin further said that Thailand is also interested in port development works as they are planning to expand their shipping activities in the South Asian region with the construction of a new port on the Andaman sea coast.

During the discussion Minister Karunanayake pointed out the importance of bilateral collaboration in the garment sector, where Thailand is a strong player.

He suggested that such a collaboration scheme could facilitate Thailand to enter the huge Indian market through presently unutilised quotas available through Indo - Lanka FTA, through the value addition in Sri Lanka.

The Minister further revealed that Sri Lanka is keen on setting up more textile mills to substitute imports in the garment industry, which is one of the possible areas that Thai investors should look into.

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