It is with immense pleasure that I send this message on the occasion of our celebration of the 63rd Independence Day of Sri Lanka. We are celebrating our Independence day at a time when Sri Lanka is going through a new era in our history with the ending of prolonged internal conflict that lasted for nearly three decades. Today, Sri Lanka is a very stable, peaceful and progressing country in this region.
The country is now going through a new phase of development. It has emerged as a land of new opportunities, specially for the international business community with abundance of opportunities in various sectors. Sri Lanka is projected to continue to grow at a higher level of economic development and it is cited as the most promising and attractive tourist destination in the region. It is our thinking that this is the most appropriate and opportune time for the Pakistani business community to look at Sri Lanka more closely and establish relations with prospective partners towards strengthening our existing bilateral relations in trade, investment, tourism and other related activities.
As we all are aware, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have always maintained very close and cordial relations in diverse fields. We need to build upon this firm foundation focusing areas which need our attention at this moment of time, specially economic , trade, investment ,tourism and related areas. The Governments of our two countries have recognised the importance of expanding our activities in these areas and taken steps to introduce various measures including implementation of the Pakistan- Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement.
The Agreement is now being implemented fully. While we have seen a good progress in trade in both directions, there is a need to further improve bilateral trade specially focusing new products and services. The current trading pattern reflects certain limitations of the composition of goods being traded and therefore there is a need to study the markets more closely to explore opportunities available and further expand and promote trade and commercial activities. We have seen renewed interest of Pakistan business community in identifying and exploring opportunities available for them in Sri Lanka, which is certainly a good sign.
We need to keep this momentum. The Governments of both countries will be facilitating the efforts of business community in this direction. We will be pleased to regularly interact with the business community , discuss their interests and facilitate them in all possible ways. I take this opportunity to record our sincere appreciation and thanks to the Government of Pakistan , Business community and the Peoples of Pakistan for their continued support and co-operation extended to us at all times. On this important National day of Sri Lanka, I wish to convey our warm greetings and best wishes to the Peoples of Pakistan as well as to the Sri Lankans living in Pakistan for their peace, heath and prosperity.