Russia announced that it has taken steps to provide eight large helicopters to Sri Lanka as a total donation; the Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Office said quoting visiting Head of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independence States-Russia Konstantin Kosachev.
This was revealed when the visiting Russian envoy held talks with Prime Minister D.M.Jayaratne at his house in Gampola.
Russia, which has submitted a bid for obtaining “Expo 2020” Exhibition to Russia also urged Sri Lanka’s support for the same. He told that they are not prepared to give up that opportunity at any cost as their country owns one of the stable economies in the world. To win this opportunity the vote of Sri Lanka is very important to them. Hundred and sixty two countries are competing for this exhibition. There are some Asian countries among them.
Russia expects to conduct this exhibition in a city which links Asian and European countries. This would provide a preferential situation to Sri Lanka as well. This would immensely important to enhance the tourism in Sri Lanka. Russia expects around twenty million people for this exhibition from local and foreign countries. The estimated income of this exhibition is USD 200 million. Head of the Federal Agency stated that this would help Sri Lanka to meet its goal of attracting one million tourists to visit Sri Lanka and he promised to arrange special programme for this target, Mr. Kosachev.
Prime Minister Jayaratne said that Sri Lanka is prepared to help Russia, if it requests for a help as the Russian Federation is a intimate friend of Sri Lanka. United Soviet Socialist Republic as well as the Russian Federation assisted Sri Lanka financially and institutionally to uplift the economic and political stability in the country. He added that Russia volunteered dedicatedly to support Sri Lanka at difficult stages in defeating the 30 year long war and this support is clearly visible at international level today. When some Western countries including USA accuse Sri Lanka on false human rights violations Russia and China came forward to mitigate such allegations, the statement added.
DM