Plans to improve air connectivity with Saudi Arabia

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recommended that the government take steps to improve air connectivity with the countries of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen by adding more connections from and to Colombo by SriLankan Airlines in order to mitigate the effects of the break off of air connectivity between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the UAE,

Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen.

The above proposal submitted before Cabinet on Tuesday was approved and it was further

decided to fully implement the bilateral Air Services Agreements with KSA, Egypt, the UAE

and Bahrain to allow for Sri Lankan Airlines to augment its flight connections to these countries.

“We discussed the issue at length and Minister of Foreign Employment Thalatha Athukorala is working to ensure that Sri Lankans working Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake is working closely with other embassies to monitor the situation”, Co-Cabinet Spokesperson, Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara said.

He added that no decision on Sri Lanka’s stance on Qatar was made and that they hoped that the Gulf countries would resolve the issue through negotiations soon.

“We will discuss the matter further in our next Cabinet meeting,”the minister said.

At present, 150,000 Sri Lankans live and work in Qatar.

With the crisis in the Gulf, reports emerged this week that private banks in Sri Lanka were refusing to buy Qatari Riyals and co-Cabinet Spokesperson, Minister Rajitha Senaratne responding to such reports stated that it was only the IMF which could decide on which currencies would be traded and thus far they have received no notification asking them to stop trading in Riyals, “We will continue to buy Riyals, private banks too will have to adhere to this policy,”

Minister Senaratne said. 

 

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