IOR-ARC to promote intra-regional tourism

The dawn of peace in Sri Lanka after defeating the LTTE terrorism, has brought opportunities for rapid economic development.

The Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is investing heavily on the reconstruction of the affected areas in the North and East and in the improvement of the national infrastructure, External Affairs Deputy Minister Gitanjana Gunawardena said.

Gunawardena was addressing the 10th Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) Council of Ministers meeting in Sana'a, the Republic of Yemen.

The External Affairs Deputy Minister who was in Sana'a, the Republic of Yemen led the Sri Lanka delegation to the 10th IOR-ARC Meeting of Council of Ministers. Sri Lanka delegation consisted of senior officials from Ministries of External Affairs, Industry and Commerce and Academia. IOR-ARC is a group of Indian Ocean Rim Countries launched in 1997 to promote economic cooperation in the Indian Ocean region. Headquarted in Mauritius it has a membership of 18 countries including Sri Lanka.

The reconciliation and reconstruction process were well-appreciated by the Member States at this meeting and at the bilateral meetings that the Deputy Minister had with Iran, Yemen, Oman and Mozambique on the sidelines of the IOR-ARC.

The Deputy Minister highlighted that the areas where member States can promote jointly; firstly, IOR-ARC cooperation to enhance "Intra Regional Tourism". The region signifies unity in diversity. As such, it offers tremendous potential for tourism. And Indian Ocean package for tourism can cover Africa, Middle East South and East Asia as well as Australia. Individual Member countries can benefit from such tourism, he said.

The Deputy Minister also reiterated that the "Jewel of Muscat Project" a 9th Century Trading vessel which arrived at Galle Port in April this year was a project that could be used in the promotion of regional tourism.

In addition to the Science and Technology Transfer Centre, which is already in Tehran, Sri Lanka highlighted "the need for the other Centre of Excellence in the region".

Sri Lanka's proposal to establish the "Centre of Excellence" was well accepted by the member states and it was incorporated to the "Sana'a Communique and was highlighted."

Sri Lanka was invited to make the proposals on the Centres of excellence on environment, ocean science and Intellectual property rights. Sri Lanka was represented by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) at the Indian Ocean Rim Academic Group (IOR-AG) of IOR-ARC.

During the Working Group Meeting of the Trade and Investment (WGTI), Iran, Sri Lanka, Oman and Yemen discussed the possibilities of finalizing the framework for Preferential Trade Agreement. The draft framework was almost completed during the meeting.

The member states will be in a position to take a final decision to move forward to the negotiations on a PTA at the next meeting, depending on the support of sufficient number of members to engage in such an arrangement.

It was also decided to explore a possibility to have one to one business meetings during next session of the Indian Ocean Rim Business Forum (IORBF).

Sri Lanka welcomed, among other initiatives, the setting up of the Fisheries Support Unit (FSU) and Maritime Transport Council (MTC) in Oman to promote sustainable exploitation of fishery resources and cooperation in combating Marine pollution, ocean related disaster management.

The Council of Ministers Meeting (COM) was preceded by the three working group of meetings of the IOR-ARC Academic Group, Business Forum and the Trade and Investment, as well as the Senior Officials meeting held from July 31 - August 5 in Sana'a.