Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera, at his first official overseas visit after assuming office, told the Board of Governors meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Jeju Island, Korea, that the government’s plan was to make Sri Lanka an export driven economic and financial hub of the Indian Ocean.

Minister Samaraweera said that to achieve these objectives, the government has set out a high-level reform agenda in several key sectors of the economy, facilitating and empowering the private sector as the principle engine of growth.

The Finance and Mass Media Minister also spoke about Sri Lanka's economic growth, which has been driven by large infrastructure projects and said developing physical infrastructure must be done along with administrative and legal frameworks to ensure required policy or regulatory support to streamline and boost public and private investments.

“Given the rapid increase in climate related disasters in many countries, like the floods Sri Lanka faced 2 weeks ago, the building of climate/disaster resilient infrastructure will be of paramount importance for the future,” the Minister said. “If we are to meet this challenge, we must incorporate climate resilient concepts into all future infrastructure development projects.”

Minister Samaraweera also met with Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Strategy and Finance of Republic of Korea Kim Dong-yeon, Finance Minister of India Arun Jaitley, and Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Finance Minister of Indonesia for bilateral discussions on the sidelines of the AIIB Conference.