Sri Lanka to progress in digitalization similar to Malaysia

COLOMBO (News 1st); Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris expressed Sri Lanka’s desire to look at the experiences of Malaysia in the field of digitalization and to adopt certain aspects as per the needs of the country. The Commissioner of Malaysia to Colombo Tan Yang Thai discussed avenues to enhance cooperation between the two countries in the post COVID-19 era with Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris at the Foreign Ministry yesterday (14). Stating Sri Lanka was among the first to recognize Malaysia’s independence back in 1957, with the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2017, the High Commissioner expressed his strong desire to re-enact partnerships in several areas, including the restoration of the air connectivity to its fullest capacity and facilitate strong people to people interaction between the two countries. Foreign Minister Peiris also emphasized the need of building further collaborations in the areas that are beneficial to both countries. Minister Peiris highly commended the enormous progress that Malaysia recorded in the field of digitalization. He identified digitalization as an area that the Government intends to achieve rapid progress over several key areas in the public sector, including administration, court proceedings, education and health. Moreover, the Minister also expressed Sri Lanka’s desire to look at the experiences of Malaysia in this field and adopt certain aspects as per the needs of the country. During the discussion, Minister Peiris also praised the education system in Malaysia, where Malaysian Universities with the collaboration of reputed foreign Universities, offer diversified courses for students to continue their higher studies without migrating to foreign countries. Underlining the inadequacy of infrastructure in higher education and technical education and the urgent need of broadening the vocational training sector in Sri Lanka, Minister Prof. Peiris identified this as an area of cooperation that both countries could progress.