Following a warm welcome, matters of mutual interests and Economic development programmes were discussed during the meeting between the Minister Rajapaksa and BJP representatives.

The other BJP members who participated in the meeting with the Minister Rajapaksa include Dr. Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Dr. Chari Seshadri Ramanujan, Dr. Swapan Dasgupta and Prof. Madhav Nalapat.

During the discussions, the Economic Development Minister focused attention on the expanding Sri Lanka-India economic cooperation and expressed his appreciation of India’s contribution to the development of the island’s infrastructure and among other fields.

Pointing out that Sri Lanka’s security is important to India, Dr. Swamy told  Minister Rajapaksa that the end of the war has benefited Indian security as well. In particular, they commended the Government’s initiatives in the north and east towards improving infrastructure, bringing better educational opportunities to students and implementing programmes to make Sri Lanka a trilingual nation.

Minister of Environment and Renewable Energy Susil Premajayantha, Minister of Traditional Industries & Small Enterprise Development Douglas Devananda, Parliamentarian Thilanga Sumathipala, North provincial council opposition leader S Thavarasa, Ministry Secretary Dr. Nihal Jayathilake and Presidential Advisor Dr. Sunimal Fernando also participated in the discussion.(KH/SI)