Turkish Ambassador Rakibe Demet complained during a meeting with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena about difficulties faced by some of the Turkish businessmen in obtaining long-term residential visas for investments in Sri Lanka.  

She explained these issues to the Prime Minister during a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office on Friday. 
Gunawardena assured the envoy that the newly introduced relaxed visa regulations and investment facilitation schemes of Board of Investment (BOI) will help to attract more Turkish investors to Sri Lanka and said Turkey has the opportunities now to invest in new sectors such as production of agricultural machinery, medicine, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment and renewable energy and fisheries sectors.  

Thanking the Prime Minister for the assurance he gave on the visa issue, Ms Demet said that this would help her Embassy’s efforts to promote Turkish investments in Sri Lanka.  

The Turkish Ambassador said her country has already provided a stock of medicine and surgical equipment for the Sri Lanka health sector last month and two more consignments of medicine will arrive in Sri Lanka next week. The Prime Minister thanked Turkey for the support and assistance provided to Sri Lanka under renewed assistance programme’s of the Turkey Development and Cooperation Agency for development work as well as to help early recovery from current economic problems.  

They also discussed the plans for tourism promotion and expand Turkish Airlines’ Ankara- Colombo-Male flights.