23 Nov 2023 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda, Finance State Minister Shehan Semasinghe, Treasury Secretary Mahindra Siriwardana, Japanese Ambassador Mizukoshi Hideaki and JICA Chief Representative for Sri Lanka Yamada Tetsuya at the signing of the agreements
Sri Lanka yesterday received a grant assistance of approximately Rs.770 million from the government of Japan.
The grant was extended under two different projects, with the higher financial assistance being offered to the fisheries sector and the other to the Meteorology Department.
Approximately Rs.435 million was offered to provide supportive equipment for the fisheries industry, under the Japanese Economic and Social Development Programme.
The objective of this grant aid is to develop cold chain facilities and equip the fisheries sector with modern electronic equipment, thereby realising high value-added marine products and contributing to upgrading the living standard of the fishermen in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.
Under this grant assistance, ice making machines, digital platform scales, sets of fishing net, refrigerator trucks and prefabricated refrigerators/freezers will be provided.
This grant assistance will help reduce the constraints that exist in the value chain and increase the competitiveness, by promoting private sector investments in the fisheries industry.
The second grant, amounting to about Rs.355 million, is to upgrade institutional capabilities for forecasting weather conditions and disseminating weather information.
The supplementary grant, extended through the JICA, is to allow Sri Lanka to obtain a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), an essential part for securing reliable data communication, especially in severe disaster situations, where extreme rains, lightning, landslides, etc. can disrupt conventional communication.
The new grant is an extension of the assistance offered in 2017, which amounted to Rs.3,422 million, for the establishment of the Doppler radar network in Sri Lanka. The purpose of the grant was to mitigate effectively the disasters caused by hazardous meteorological phenomena through the improvement of weather forecasts and information disseminated by the Meteorology Department.
The grant assistance will be a great patronage to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to the response of the Meteorology Department to natural disasters, the Finance Ministry said in a statement to the media.
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