COLOMBO MAYOR ABOUT COOPERATION COLOMBO, Nov 18 (Hina) - The cooperation between Croatia and Sri Lanka in the decades before recent wars can be a stepping stone for business cooperation which President Mesic's visit will stimulate,
Colombo Mayor, Prasanna Gounawardena, said during a meeting with Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Monday.
COLOMBO, Nov 18 (Hina) - The cooperation between Croatia and Sri
Lanka in the decades before recent wars can be a stepping stone for
business cooperation which President Mesic's visit will stimulate,
Colombo Mayor, Prasanna Gounawardena, said during a meeting with
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Monday. #L#
At a ceremony held at the city hall in the honour of President Mesic,
who is ending his visit to Sri Lanka on Monday, Gounawardena said he
believed that the decades which were followed by the recent period
of unrest in the two countries could be a stepping stone for
fruitful cooperation between the two countries.
He recalled the presence of Croatian companies in his country in the
170's, when, for example, Zagreb's INGRA company constructed the
Polgoll dam in the central part of Sri Lanka, the cooperation of the
two countries' partners at the Zagreb Fair and important maritime
and trade relations between the harbours of Colombo and Rijeka in
the same period.
President Mesic said how important peace war, stressing that he had
repeatedly said that it was better to hold negotiations for ten
years than to wage war for ten days.
Croatia can be an entrance for Sri Lanka's businesses to the markets
of central-eastern Europe, Mesic said.
On Monday morning Mesic held a brief meeting with Sri Lanka's
parliamentary president, Joseph Michel Perer, who expressed hope
in the strengthening of cooperation between the two countries.
(hina) lml