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| Saturday, 2 October 2004 |
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Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar who is leading the Sri Lanka delegation to the 59th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York after the departure of President Kumaratunga had a series of meetings with his counterparts from Singapore, Luxembourg, Iceland and Kazakhstan on a range of bilateral economic matters as well as multilateral questions including UN reforms. It was agreed with the new Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo that the business communities of the two countries should take the initiative in expediting pending negotiations with regard to a possible Free Trade Agreement and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between Sri Lanka and Singapore (CEPASS), as well as on the question of a free trade zone for Singapore investors which is being studied by a team from Jurong. It was also agreed that outstanding matters relating to the Prima Company in Sri Lanka would soon be settled. Both sides reaffirmed their interest in promoting travel within the region including by Buddhist pilgrims. Minister Yeo said Singapore could act as the "funnel" for directing travellers to various parts of the region. In this context, Singapore stressed the importance of concluding Open Skies Agreements. Minister Yeo invited Sri Lanka to participate, and Foreign Minister Kadirgamar agreed that Sri Lanka would do so, in the celebrations to be organised next year by Singapore for the 600th anniversary of the historic voyage of the Muslim-Chinese Admiral Chen Ho with his fleet, the largest in the world at that time, which had visited Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cochin, Kerala, Iran, Mombasa and other ports in the Indian Ocean. The Singaporean Minister referred to the plaque at the Galle Fort with an inscription relating to the visit of Admiral Chen Ho. At his meeting with Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, Minister Kadirgamar urged that favourable consideration be given to Sri Lanka's case for preferential treatment in respect of its textile products after the expiry of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in 2005, in view of Sri Lanka's disadvantaged position in accessing European markets which has already been acknowledged by the Governments of the Untied Kingdom and Germany. Minister Asselborn undertook to look into these matters when Luxembourg assumes the Presidency of the European Union in January 2005. Minister Kadirgamar will shortly be visiting the Netherlands which currently holds the Presidency of the European Union and has already discussed this matter with the Government of the Untied Kingdom which will assume the Presidency in July 2005. An invitation was extended to Minister Asselborn to visit Sri Lanka. At the meeting with the Foreign Minister of Iceland, requested by him, both sides agreed, among other matters, to promote tourist links between the two countries. It was agreed to proceed with the proposals of two major Icelandic tour operators to commence winter charter tours to Sri Lanka. Minister Kadirgamar requested, and the Icelandic Foreign Minister agreed, that a team from the Icelandic Development Agency should visit Sri Lanka to assess the possibilities of technical co-operation between the two countries especially in the areas of fisheries and tourism. Iceland had the world's sixth largest fisheries industry. Talks with the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan also yielded tangible results including agreement to expedite the process of concluding a pending bilateral agreement on trade, technical and economic co-operation in respect of which Sri Lanka had furnished observations in 2000. Sri Lanka will be invited to send a senior official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend as an observer the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) to be held in Kazakhstan on October 22, 2004. The next step in upgrading relations between the two countries will be a mission from Kazakhstan to Sri Lanka to examine the possibilities of expanding commercial relations in the tea trade, tourism, apparel sector and in other areas as well. Later the two Foreign Ministers will visit each other's countries, possibly in the first quarter of next year. Kazakhstan has the world's ninth largest territorial area. It has a population of 15 million people and major deposits of petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron, ore, manganese, chrome, nickel, cobalt, copper, lead, zinc, bauxite, gold and uranium. Kazakhstan will soon accredit its Ambassador based in new Delhi to Sri Lanka. |
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