Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has extended an invitation to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to visit Pakistan, Pakistan based news agencies reported.

The invitation was extended during a meeting with visiting Irrigation and Water Management Nimal Siripala De Silva in Islamabad on Friday.

Prime Minister Sharif said that Pakistan and Sri Lanka enjoys excellent relations and there is strong political will on both sides to further develop and promote the bilateral relations. Sri Lankan Minister is visiting Pakistan as special envoy of the President of Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister said that there are vast opportunities for increasing the bilateral trade and the both sides should make efforts to enhance the volume of the trade in order to achieve maximum benefits.   Both sides should work towards concluding Comprehensive Economic Policy Agreement (CEPA) by 2016 and encourage the private sectors to invest in each other’s economies, PM added. He also stressed to make Free Trade Agreement between the two countries more conducive by increasing the volume of trade.

PM recalled his meetings with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in New York and in Colombo and hoped that the Summit level contacts will help in further boosting the relations. PM assured continued support to Sri Lanka at International forums.

Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva reciprocated the warm greetings of the PM and said that the relations between the two countries will further enhance due to keen interest of both the Pakistani and Sri Lankan leadership.