More employment, investment opportunities

Sri Lanka will make a bigger effort to gain employment for more Sri Lankan workers overseas, said Minister of Foreign Affairs professor GL Peiris.

He said that he would be travelling to South Korea this week and hold talks to increase its intake of Sri Lankan workers there. “South Korean migrant workers brought in and around US dollars 520 million to Sri Lanka but this has dried up and I want to reactivate this market.”

Minister prof.G L Peiris addressing the Sri Lanka Day at the Dubai World Expo at the world’s biggest dome auditorium specially built for the expo.

While holding similar visits to other countries we will also request the Sri Lankan embassies overseas to be more aggressive in this area and look at other investment opportunities to Sri Lanka and increase bilateral trade.”

He also said that they will also have a series of talks with EU countries once again to keep the GSP plus status for Sri Lanka for the future as well.

With the current closure of several European countries for tourists there is a huge demand for Dubai and Gulf based expatriates to move into cooler climates and Sri Lanka can step in this regard by promoting Kandy and Nuwara Eliya aggressively to this market.

While taking advantage of Sri Lanka’s geographical location specially for the maritime sector he also said Sri Lanka will have a good future by concentrating more on a blue economy taking advantage of the ocean.