The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) hosted a 11-member business delegation from Russia recently.
President, NCCSL, Deepal Nelson said B to B sessions hosted by the Chamber opened up several business opportunities which were not possible due to lack of access before, in sectors such as power, shipping, ship building, education and high tech.
The visiting delegation represented diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, trade, fertiliser, hi-tech, infrastructure development, logistics, shipbuilding and port infrastructure, IT solutions, education, banking and the finance sector.
“We also saw the initial plans by the business community of both countries moving towards setting up joint ventures,” he said.
Currently Russia is the top tourism source market for Sri Lanka after India and this year so far has 68,989 Russian tourists have visited Sri Lanka up to March 6.
“Some of the Russian investors have indicated to us that they are keen come back again to follow up on some of the investment proposals they received from Sri Lankan counterparts,” Nelson said.
The Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, L. S. Dzhagaryan said that they are to increase bilateral trade between the two countries.
Nelson said that Sri Lanka is free from geo politics and the FTA’s the country has with India, Pakistan and now Thailand opens up a near two billion population market access when exporting via Sri Lanka. – SS
