A housing city to be named after Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah is to be built in Sri Lanka with Saudi aid to accommodate the country’s tsunami victims.
It will have 500 houses, two schools (one for boys and the other for girls), a hospital, a mosque, a playground, a bus terminal and a shopping mall. The agreement for the construction of this Rs1.1 billion project was signed on Jan. 20 by Saeed Al-Harithy, chairman of the Saudi Charity Campaign (SCC), and Brunson McKinley, director general of International Organization for Migration (IOM), in the presence of Sri Lankan Ambassador A.M.J. Sadiq.
The project to be built in Akkaraipattu in the district of Ampara, approximately 300 kilometers from Colombo, will be on land donated by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Housing and Common Amenities. It is to be carried out by local contractors and is expected to be completed in two years.
Speaking to Arab News on the eve of his country’s National Day, Ambassador Sadiq said the project is a symbol of friendship between the two countries. “The project would not only provide permanent shelter to the survivors of the tsunami disaster, but would also generate new employment opportunities for those who had lost their livelihood,” observed Sadiq. Tsunami waves took away the lives of 35,000 Sri Lankans and rendered 500,000 people internally displaced. He said this was not the first time that the Kingdom had come to the aid of the island. “It has always lent its helping hand in times of natural and man-made calamities.”
When thousands of civilians in Muttur were displaced due to terrorist activities in the northeastern part of the island last year, the Kingdom sent two plane loads of relief aid to Colombo, Sadiq said. The 150 metric ton consignment containing 2,000 waterproof tents, 4,000 blankets, 2,000 carpets, medicines and food items was distributed under the direct supervision of a six-member Saudi team headed by Saad Al-Wetaid from the Ministry of Finance. “The Saudi aid benefited more than 2,000 families in Muttur,” the envoy noted.
The Kingdom has an active and ongoing development cooperation program with Sri Lanka since 1981. The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), the development assistance arm of the Saudi government, had provided soft loans amounting to SR99.9 million for the second stage of the Water Supply and Sewage project in Colombo and SR48.1 million for the Electrical Transmission Project, both of which have been successfully completed. The Mahaweli Ganga Development Project (System B Left Bank) which was the maiden project is still ongoing and has been funded to the tune of SR85 million to date.
Another project worth SR40 million for the construction of a bridge and widening a highway in the Eastern Province is also under way. The proposed bridge would link China Bay in the Trincomalee district with Kinniya. Currently there are 100,000 people living in Kinniya who are using a ferry service as their mode of transport. The Trincomalee-Batticaloa highway will also be widened with the same funds allocated under the agreement.
The latest project under the SFD assistance program is the construction of the National Neuro-Trauma Center in Colombo which is estimated to cost SR45 million.
The envoy said that he is negotiating with the Saudi authorities in consultation with the Saudi mission in Colombo for the exchange of high-level political and business visits. Last year, Abdul Hameed Mohamed Fowzie, minister of transport, railways, petroleum and petroleum resource development, led a high-level goodwill delegation, and called on King Abdullah as well as Riyadh Governor Prince Salman. The minister held official talks with Ali Al-Naimi, minister of petroleum and mineral resources. He sought Saudi assistance for technical training of Sri Lankan personnel in the field of oil exploration. Sri Lanka has conducted seismic surveys in 2002 and 2005 that revealed that there is a high probability of striking oil in the Mannar Basin which covers an area of 35,000 square kilometers, stretching from Mannar in the northeast to Kalutara in the south of the island.
The Minister of Housing and Construction Ferial Ashraff also visited the Kingdom last October at the invitation of Interior Minister Prince Naif.
Minister Fowzie as minister in-charge of Haj, who led the island’s official delegation for the last pilgrimage, was accompanied by four other ministers.
Sadiq said the embassy will work with renewed vigor to promote economic cooperation with Saudi Arabia, particularly in the fields of trade, tourism and investment, given the current economic boom of the Kingdom. The ambassador is in contact with some prominent businessmen in Colombo who have shown interest in joint venture projects with Saudi partners.
In Sri Lanka, Abdul Aziz Al-Mashal, a prominent family office in the Kingdom, owns strategic stakes in a leading private bank, Commercial Bank of Ceylon and John Keells Holdings, a business conglomerate with diverse interests locally and abroad. It also holds equity stakes in two other publicly traded companies listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange. Al-Mashal’s outlook on the Sri Lankan market is very positive and has detailed a long-term plan for its investments in Sri Lanka. In the past two years, since the family office began operations in the country, it has reaped impressive returns on its investments.
The two largest state owned commercial banks, namely Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank as well as a leading private bank, Seylan Bank, maintain representative offices in the Kingdom to provide services to the Sri Lankan community in sending remittances to their families back home. Top Saudi banks, such as the Arab National Bank, Bank Albilad and the SAAB also offer special services to expatriates for fast and convenient money transfers.
Following the recent liberalization of the insurance business in the Kingdom, the ambassador is keen to promote Sri Lankan insurance companies to enter into joint venture partnerships with Saudi business groups. In this regard, Amana Takaful Insurance of Sri Lanka has shown interest in coming to the Kingdom. Amana Takaful Limited in Colombo was set up in 1999 in collaboration with Takaful Malaysia, the largest Takaful operator in the world. From the inception, the company has catered for both Family and General Takaful Insurance. Amana Takaful’s record of success is not only because of its excellent product range, but also due to its outstanding customer service, which goes beyond expectations. Having secured a triple digit growth every year, Amana Takaful has become a significant player in the field of insurance in Sri Lanka today. Sadiq also has plans to organize programs in cooperation with SriLankan Airlines to promote the island as a tourist destination. He pointed out that the Saudi tourists are heavy spenders and they look for South Asian destinations for their holidays. “We have a wide range of attractions to offer Saudi tourists but hitherto we have not harnessed this lucrative market effectively,” he added.
In this respect, a tourist brochure on Sri Lanka was launched last May to promote the island as a family destination for Saudis and expatriates in the Kingdom. The brochure, highlighting various facilities and attractive tailor-made packages for Saudi clients, was sponsored by Unique Choice, the leading wholesale tour operator in the Kingdom.
“Despite sporadic incidents in some parts of the north and east of the island, Sri Lanka is still a safe place for a family holiday,” Sadiq said. He pointed out that unlike in certain countries which are leading tourist destinations, no foreigner had been targeted by the LTTE rebels. The relatively peaceful environment and the rapid progress in tsunami reconstruction have paved the way for a surge in tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka.
SriLankan Airlines currently operates five flights per week from the Kingdom to Colombo providing convenient connections to Indian cities and Southeast Asian destinations. The flights are on Mondays and Wednesdays from Riyadh and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from Dammam. SriLankan Airlines has expressed keen interest to expand its services to Jeddah, which would not only give a major boost to expanding bilateral trade, Jeddah being the commercial hub of the Kingdom, but will be a boon to Sri Lankan Haj and Umrah pilgrims.
To make travel more convenient to visitors, SriLankan Airlines has introduced an air taxi service for its passengers to reduce the travel time on the island’s roads. “A trip which would take four hours on the road, could be covered in 30 minutes by an air taxi,” Sadiq said.
The envoy, averring to the fact that the Kingdom is home to the largest Sri Lankan community abroad estimated at around 500,000, stated that the embassy in Riyadh and its consulate general in Jeddah are hard-pressed to provide an effective service, especially in handling labor complaints, mainly due to the acute shortage of staff. He hoped that following the recent visit of a fact-finding team from the Foreign Ministry and Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) in Colombo, speedy action would be taken to provide additional staff and urgent required facilities to the two missions. Around 80 percent of the Sri Lankan workers are female domestic aides. In an effort to help housemaids, the embassy has opened a round-the-clock help desk for those in distress. “This was done as a follow-up to the three-day Sri Lankan ambassadors’ meeting held in Colombo last October under the chairmanship of President Mahinda Rajapakse,”Sadiq said, adding that the mission will remain open 24 hours to receive runaway housemaids, who would be given shelter at a safe house which is run by the mission with the assistance of the SLBFE.
To streamline the recruitment procedures relating to domestic aides, the mission is closely working with the Saudi National Recruitment Committee (SANARCOM) headed by Saad Al-Baddah, who has been recently elected chairman of the Regional Committee to coordinate recruitment of foreign manpower in GCC countries.
On a recent presidential directive issued to all diplomatic missions, Sadiq said the embassy has designated every Wednesday a public day when any Sri Lankan could meet embassy officials, including the ambassador during office hours, without prior appointment.
To cater to the educational needs of Sri Lankan children in the Kingdom, the Sri Lankan International School (SLIS), Riyadh was established in 1988. With 550 students on the roll, the institution has earned a reputation as a center of educational excellence. In the recent past, many students have gained admission to universities and higher seats of learning in Sri Lanka and other countries.
Founded in 1992, the Sri Lankan Expatriates Society (SLES) — Riyadh, which functions under the patronage of the Riyadh embassy serves the needs of the Sri Lankan community. Besides organizing social and cultural activities and community events, the society runs a free medical clinic at the SLIS Riyadh and provides financial assistance to deserving humanitarian projects back home.
The SLES played a prominent role in the tsunami relief efforts undertaken by the embassy. It remitted Rs15 million in cash and dispatched 10 container loads of relief aid to tsunami victims following the disaster two years ago. In commemoration of the second anniversary of the tragedy, the SLES, in association with the embassy, launched a fund to assist the tsunami orphans in the island.
The ambassador plans to embark on an ambitious program to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence next year. A series of events will be chalked out for 2008 to commemorate the diamond jubilee on a grand scale.