On Monday, Wu Bangguo Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo on his four-day official visit to the country. Wu praised Sri Lanka for its post-war achievements, and asserted that it will continue to support economic growth in the country and provide aid for its development projects.
Wu said, "China-Sri Lanka relations are now at the best period of development in history."
Currently, China is the largest development partner to Sri Lanka, providing development assistance over 5 billion dollars.
Rajapaksa thanked China for its assistance at the last UNHRC sessions and assured that it will support China’s candidature to UNHRC for 2014-2016.
Rajapaksa said, “We will continue to support China on every issue that affects her interests at regional and multi-national fora.” That includes maintaining the same policy toward Taiwan and Tibet issues.
Wu proposed a change in the trading structure between the countries to yield more investment, tourism and import more goods from Sri Lanka. Wu also encouraged for both countries to cooperate on “maritime research.”
According to Xinhua, Wu and Rajapaksa signed 16 cooperative agreements between the two countries and enterprises of both countries, but no details were provided on the bilateral agreements.
