During the visit by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan Yoshimasa Hayashi, Ambassador of Japan to Sri Lanka Hideaki Mizukoshi and Secretary, Ministry of Finance K. M. M. Siriwardana, signed the Exchange of Notes for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS) project in the presence of Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena at Temple Trees in Colombo.
Through the Exchange of Notes, the Government of Japan has provided a grant aid worth approximately Rs.611 million (Yen 284 million) for this project. This project aims to train young executive officers in the public sector at various universities in Japan and develop their skills to qualify them as future national leaders in their fields.
Seventeen public sector officials will be sent to pursue a two to three-year Master or PhD degree from 2024 under the project. Areas of their degrees cover Public Policy, Macroeconomics, Public Finance and Investment Management, Industry Development Policy and Investment Promotion, and Urban and Regional Development. The JDS project has supported 205 public sector officials in Sri Lanka since its inception in 2010.
The Prime Minister said the high level visit from Japan to Sri Lanka was very useful to explore potential projects on ports, airports, railways, renewable energy, maritime cooperation and mutual efforts to heighten private sector tie ups as important areas.
He discussed with the Japanese Foreign Minister the ongoing debt restructuring process, which is co-chaired by the Japanese Government, and supported by India, France and other donor countries.
The Prime Minister recalling that the previous Government made a mistake in suspending the proposed Light Rail Transit (LRT) project and called upon Japan to have further discussion on resuming the project and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi agreed to consider it as a Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) project.