COLOMBO: Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Saturday that Sri Lanka was a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific and also at countering an increasingly assertive China.
Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realising a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo. The initiative, announced by Japanese PM Fumio Kishida in March includes Japan’s assistance to emerging economies, support for maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation.
Last year Sri Lanka, which owed USD 51 billion in foreign debt, became the first Asia-Pacific country since the late 1990s to default, sparking an economic crisis.