Chinese Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan last week hosted a grand reception for Members of the Sri Lanka Parliament at Waters Edge, to celebrate the successful conclusion of their series of visits to China. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, dozens of Ministers, MPs, as well as Parliament staffs and journalists, attended the event and expressed their appreciation to the Chinese side for the familiarisation-visits arrangement.
The familiarisation-visit mechanism between the Chinese Embassy and the Sri Lankan Legislature is the only regular, and largest, such arrangement for the latter with other nations. From October 2015 till July 2019, 11 batches of MPs and 1 batch of Parliament journalists, covering 192 persons in total, have visited more than 20 provinces/cities of China, studied dozens of different industries, and communicated with all walks of life in China under this mechanism.
(FT)