Japan’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Akio Isomata, has completed a series of engagements across the Northern Province, using the visit to restate Tokyo’s support for Sri Lanka’s economic development, social progress and efforts to further improve its human rights situation.
In a meeting with Northern Province Governor Nagalingam Vedanayagam, the ambassador raised issues affecting communities in the north, including land-related concerns and the question of missing persons. The two also exchanged views on the region’s development and on ways to stimulate economic growth in the province.
Particular attention went to the Export-Oriented Industrial Corridor that Japan is promoting, and to what the Northern Province stands to gain from it. Isomata said such initiatives could create new openings for investment, employment and economic expansion in the region.
The ambassador separately met representatives of families of missing persons and listened to their concerns.
At Kankesanthurai Port, Isomata observed current operations and said the facility had the potential to contribute considerably more to the region’s economic future. KKS is already the Sri Lankan terminus of the passenger ferry to Nagapattinam in India, a service New Delhi agreed this month to fund for a third year at Rs. 300 million.
At Jaffna International Airport in Palaly, he toured the Plant Quarantine Station, where Japanese-supplied equipment — microscopes, laminar flow cabinets, autoclaves and incubators — is in use. He said the facility could support regional connectivity, agricultural development and economic growth.
The visit also took in the Jaffna Public Library, where the ambassador was accompanied by Mayor V. Maivadani, and a discussion with the Jaffna Chamber of Commerce on strengthening private sector activity in the region.
Isomata has pushed an industrial-corridor agenda before. In May he urged acceleration of a proposed Sri Lanka–Japan–India corridor at a Sri Lanka Japan Business Council forum, warning that Colombo was capturing only a fraction of a USD 60 billion Japanese market. NewsFirst did not say whether that proposal and the export-oriented corridor discussed in Jaffna are the same initiative.
Source: NewsFirst.
