Sri Lankan Ambassador to China Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku receives an exclusive interview from Xinhuanet in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2018. (Xinhuanet/Zhang Bin)
BEIJING, March 2 (Xinhuanet) -- The remarkable vision of building a community with shared future for mankind proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping means sharing the prosperity among countries and peoples. This message gives a new hope to many developing countries, said Sri Lankan Ambassador to China, Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku.
“We admire it, we must support it, and we must cooperate with it,” he made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Xinhuanet on Tuesday.
“If you look at the history of the past two to three centuries the imperial powers of the West exploited occupied countries, whatever they could gain from those countries were used only to improve the living conditions of their own people,” the Ambassador said.
“But the contrast in China’s Belt and Road Initiative is that it is a shared future. China is interested not only in the Chinese economy and its people but also the other economies and peoples of those countries.”
He spoke highly of the Belt and Road Initiative which helps translate Xi’s broad vision into practice by providing opportunities in investment, technology transfer and access to global market.
“No other global power was prepared to come forward to provide such opportunities in this magnitude. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping has come forward to do that,” he stressed.
“Now China has become the most important development partner for us in investment, foreign trade, and tourism and even in the field of technology transfer,” the ambassador added.
According to him, China has been creating two important development hubs in Sri Lanka under the Belt and Road Initiative, one in Colombo, the other in Hambantota.
The project under construction in Colombo will elevate the port city into an international service hub not only for Sri Lanka, but also for South Asia, mainly focusing as international financial city such as Hong Kong and Dubai.
With China’s participation in building the industrial hub at Hambantota Port, Sri Lanka will become an important logistic platform for South Asia, Southeast Asia and even to serve East Africa and Middle East.
The ambassador also mentioned the free-trade agreement currently under negotiation between Sri Lanka and China.
“By signing a free-trade agreement, we hope that we will be able to have continuously sustainable trade between the two countries”, he told Xinhuanet.
In addition, the ambassador is very happy to see Sri Lanka growing increasingly popular among Chinese tourists.
He promised that Sri Lanka could provide good beaches, wildlife, cultural tourism, shopping and leisure, meditation and spas for overseas tourists.
As the annual sessions of China's top legislative body and top national advisory body are slated for this March, the ambassador conveyed his best wishes and looked forward to seeing how China plans to further share prosperity and create a better world for all of us.
