Saudi Arabia to provide 187.5 m riyal for fully equipped medical faculty at Sabaragamuwa University

The Saudi Arabian government has agreed to provide a concessional loan of 187.5 million Saudi Riyal (SAR) for a project to establish a fully equipped Faculty of Medicine in the Sabaragamuwa University at Ratnapura.

This project is to be launched with the aim of constructing the essentially needed infrastructure facilities and to provide the students with the state of the art teaching and learning facilities (laboratory and other equipment) that would facilitate in providing the students with world-class medical education by constructing the Faculty of Medicine at the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. This program will contribute to the Government policy of augmenting the opportunities for higher education in the field of medicine in Sri Lanka. 

A delegation headed by Secretary to the Ministry of Finance Dr. R.H.S. Samratunga with Secretary to Ministry of Higher Education Priyantha Mayadunne and the Director General of the External Resources Dept. Priyantha Rathnayake recently visited Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 6 to 9 April for negotiation in this regard. They held discussion with the delegation of Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) headed by Mohammed Aldolailan, Acting Director General, Operations Department and Advisor to the SFD, Alobaid, Bandar Abdullah O., Engineer (Project Manager) and Alrashed, Mohammad Abdullah M., Engineer (Project Manager).The negotiations were successfully concluded to obtain a concessional loan of SAR 187.5 million from the Saudi Fund for Development.