{"id":42659,"date":"2015-03-26T15:18:32","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T22:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=42659"},"modified":"2015-03-26T15:18:32","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T22:18:32","slug":"china-urges-sri-lanka-to-protect-chinese-companies-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/03\/26\/china-urges-sri-lanka-to-protect-chinese-companies-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"China urges Sri Lanka to protect Chinese companies’ interests"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Xinhua<\/a>)<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

BEIJING, March 26 — Chinese President Xi JinpingThursday called on Sri Lanka toprotect the legitimate interests of Chinese companies, expressing willingness to deepencooperation in trade and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Xi made the remarks during talks with Sri Lanka’s new President Maithripala Sirisena,who is paying a state visit to China and to attend the 2015 Boao Forum for Asia.<\/p>\n

“China’s cooperation with Sri Lanka is based on mutual benefit and a win-win situation,without any political preconditions,” Xi said, adding that China wishes to help Sri Lankasustain its development.<\/p>\n

Sirisena said the current situation with a China-funded port in Colombo is temporary andthe problems do not lie with China. He said his country welcomes more investment fromChina, promising a healthy investment climate.<\/p>\n

The 1.4 billion-U.S. dollar port city was part of a deal reached between China and SriLanka under the former Sri Lankan government. The new government, which took officein January, decided to re-examine it.<\/p>\n

Xi and Sirisena pledged to continue the longstanding friendship between the twocountries. Xi stressed the friendship should be “carefully inherited, protected anddeveloped” while Sirisena said the new government will take more robust measures tocontinue friendly cooperation with China.<\/p>\n

Calling on both sides to conclude negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement at an early date,Xi said China is willing to encourage Chinese businesses to invest in Sri Lanka and helpdevelop its manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n

Xi said both sides should work to expand cooperation in health, agriculture, science,tourism and human resources as well as exchanges in military and regional andinternational affairs. He hoped Sri Lanka support China’s efforts to enhance cooperationwith South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka eyes more cooperation with China in trade, education, science and defense,Sirisena said, thanking China’s support for Hambantota port and promising his countrywill work with China to implement all the big projects agreements reached.<\/p>\n

The 21st Century maritime silk road also emerge during their talks. Xi called on both sidesto make full use of the 40 billion U.S. dollar Silk Road fund and the Asian InfrastructureInvestment Bank to steadily push forward big projects and industrial cooperation.<\/p>\n

Calling the ancient Silk Road a shared historical legacy, Sirisena said Sri Lanka is willing towork with China within the framework of the 21st Century maritime silk road.<\/p>\n

Xi said China and Sri lanka should continue bilateral friendly cooperation and be trust-worthy and reliable friends. He said China respects Sri Lankan people’s choice ofdevelopment path in accordance with their national conditions and their efforts tosafeguard independence, sovereignty, stability and development.<\/p>\n

Both countries should understand and support each other on territory and sovereigntyrelated issues, Xi said, adding that China is willing to enhance exchanges with Sri Lanka instate governance and hopes Sri Lanka can achieve more in national development.<\/p>\n

Sirisena thanked China’s firm backing for his country in the United NationsHuman RightsCouncil and other international bodies. The U.N. Human Rights Council postponed therelease of a report on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka from March until September afterthe new government requested more time to do its own probe into the violations.<\/p>\n

After the talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of documents on infrastructure,health and other sectors.<\/p>\n

Prior to the talks, Xi held a red-carpet ceremony for Sirisena at the Great Hall of thePeople.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Xinhua) BEIJING, March 26 — Chinese President Xi JinpingThursday called on Sri Lanka toprotect the legitimate interests of Chinese companies, expressing willingness to deepencooperation in trade and infrastructure. Xi made the remarks during talks with Sri Lanka’s new President Maithripala Sirisena,who is paying a state visit to China and to attend the 2015 Boao Forum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}