Indian Foreign Minister Dr. Subramaniam Jayashankar met Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya at the Prime Minister's Office .
Prime minister Dr. Subramaniam Jayashankar congratulated Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on the electoral victory of National People's Power Alliance in the presidential election held on September 21, and assured of India's commitment to work together to further strengthen close bilateral relations. "You can count on our full support," he said.
The Prime Minister thanked India for the support given to Sri Lanka over the years and emphasized the need for continuous support for rapid economic development. She explained that Sri Lanka is going through a transition period of economic stability.
Emphasizing on digitization efforts, Dr. Amarasuriya said that Sri Lanka can benefit from India's vast experience in extending digitization to rural areas. The Prime Minister and the Indian Minister emphasized that digitization will help reduce waste, corruption and irregularities in transactions and will bring great benefits to the producers, buyers and the farming community.
Minister Jayashankar said that India will continue to share knowledge on the digital platform with Sri Lanka. He said that under the Gati Shakti program, Sri Lankan civil servants will be trained in ways and means of accelerating the implementation of development projects. He said India could expand capacity building programs in several areas including customs, income tax and postal department.
Minister Jayashankar said that neighboring countries like Sri Lanka are extremely important to India and there is great goodwill towards Sri Lanka in India. He added that the main objective of his visit was to emphasize India's continued commitment to Sri Lanka as its closest maritime neighbor and lifelong friend.
The Prime Minister and the Indian Minister discussed mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields.
The Indian delegation included Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha, Additional Secretary (Indian Ocean Region) Puneeth Agarwal, External Affairs Ministry Joint Secretary Sandeep Kumar Byapu and Deputy High Commissioner Satyanjal Pandey.
Prime Minister's Secretary Pradeep Saputathri, Foreign Ministry Director General (South Asia) Niluka Kaduragamuwa, Prime Minister's Media Director Sugiswara Senadhira and Senior Assistant Secretary Piyumi Bandara were also present on this occasion.
