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Wednesday, 2 October 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and the Central Committee Liu Yunshan who was in Sri Lanka revealed this at a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office recently.
Liu Yunshan also said that the friendship between the two countries had reached an important landmark at present.
Sri Lankan leaders including Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne were present at the event held for signing three bilateral cooperation agreements of tri-segmental developments in Sri Lanka, including education, tourism and cultural affairs. Three agreements related to the fields of education, tourism and culture were signed between Sri Lanka and China.
Under the agreement related to the field of tourism, China will provide professional services of all its media channels and experts in order to develop International level television programs for the tourism industry with producing and publishing Sri Lankan documentaries and articles in all mainstream media in China. They will also grant special cooperation to carry out promotional campaigns in order to create awareness of the Sri Lanka among Chinese travellers.
This agreement was signed by the Managing Director of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Rumy Jauffer and Chief Editor of China Central Television Luo Ming at the Prime Minister’s Office.
This agreement is seen as a timely move to develop the tourism industry in Sri Lanka at a juncture when Chinese tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka are on a steady rise, as the country has received a growing number of Chinese tourists during the first seven months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 74%.
The latest jump shows encouraging signs as the Government of Sri Lanka is trying to capture a slice of the growing Chinese outbound tourism market, which in 2012 stood at 83 million tourists. Sri Lanka Tourism aims at attracting 2.5 million tourists per annum by 2016. Out of the expected 2.5 million tourists to the country, Sri Lanka is planning to attract 275,000 Chinese travellers by 2016.
