The Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kazuyuki Nakane attended the ceremony as a special guest. Ambassador of Japan in Sri Lanka Kenichi Suganuma and Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Kapila Waidyaratne PC were also present at the occasion.
State Minister Wijewardene also made an inspection visit to the two vessels along with other dignitaries.
The two 30m vessels were built at the Sumidagawa Shipyard Co. Ltd in Tokyo and were presented to the country on a grant extended by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) based on the Grant Agreement signed by the Sri Lankan Government and JICA in June 2016 under the project for Maritime Safety Capability Improvement in Sri Lanka.
The two state of the art Patrol Boats will each have an endurance of 750 nautical miles at 12 knots and the maximum trial speed is designed to be 27 knots or more at half load condition.
The two completed vessels arrived in Colombo on 2nd July (2018) and were handed over to the SLCG on completion of acceptance trials by the shipbuilding company on 10th the same month. The agreement entails the designing, construction, delivery and crew training of the two FPVs worth 1.83 billion Japanese Yen (Rs. 2.65 billion).
