COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s leader rolled out the red carpet on yesterday for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake welcomed Modi – the first foreign dignitary to visit Colombo since the leader swept elections last year – with a 19-gun salute.
Dissanayake and Modi signed agreements on energy, defence and health, but the visit’s highlight was the launch of an Indian-backed 120 megawatt solar power project.
The solar plant on the island’s northeastern Trincomalee district had been stalled for years, but reinvigorated with New Delhi’s backing as a joint project.
Modi, who praised his “spectacular welcome” to Sri Lanka after arriving in Colombo late on Friday evening, was given an honour guard parade in the capital’s Independence Square.
Dissanayake’s first foreign visit was to New Delhi in December and a visit to Beijing in January. China has emerged as Sri Lanka’s largest single bilateral creditor, accounting for more than half of its USD14 billion bilateral debt at the time the island defaulted on its sovereign debt in 2022.
Beijing was also the first to restructure its loans to Sri Lanka, a move that cleared the way for the island to emerge from that year’s worst-ever economic meltdown.
Colombo also signed an agreement announced in January with a Chinese state-owned company to invest USD3.7 billion on an oil refinery in the island’s south.
It would be Sri Lanka’s largest single foreign investment and is seen as crucial for the island’s economy.
Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka comes after a summit in Thailand and a string of meetings with leaders of regional nations as he sought to shore up India’s relations with neighbours.
On the sidelines of the Bangkok BIMSTEC meeting – the grouping of the seven nations on the Bay of Bengal – Modi held a rare face-to-face meeting with Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.
