MR invites ADB President to visit Northern Province

President Mahinda Rajapaksa today invited the President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Takehiko Nakao to visit the Northern Province to witness the development when Mr. Nakao called on President Rajapaksa at the President’s House in Colombo.

During the discussion President Rajapaksa briefed Mr. Nakao on Sri Lanka’s post-war development and described the development projects the government had undertaken immediately after the war.

He explained also how the government had immediately attended to the resettlement of the internally displaced persons and the rehabilitation of ex-combatants.

Sri Lanka joined the ADB as a founding member in 1966. According to the ADB, since then the ADB had granted a total of $6.17 billion in lending and $358 million in grants.

The ADB supports Sri Lanka in the sectors of energy, roads, water supply and sanitation, education and skills development, post-conflict reconstruction and water resource management.

“Sri Lanka’s social indicators are among the best in South Asia,” the ADB states on its website. “The country has achieved near universal literacy, and has a comparatively low poverty level. Economic growth has been steady since the military conflict ended, but slowed in 2012. Growth had, however, picked up strongly again by the third quarter of 2013.”