Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-04-04

Development of the Colombo City as a Cultural Hub of South Asia

- The objective of the Government is to promote the Tourism Industry whilst ensuring long time environmental and cultural sustainability. The tourism industry in Sri Lanka has shown a great upsurge during the past period and in the year 2016, over 2 million foreigners had toured Sri Lanka. When classifying the objective of touring Sri Lanka, approximately over 70% of the foreign tourists tour the country for pleasure and another over 25% undertake tours for visiting friends and relatives. Although there is a great potential to attract tourists in the fields of vibrant cultural traditions like indigenous arts, dancing performances, cookery, ceremonies etc. conventional to the country, the number of tourists who visit the country aiming at religious and cultural goals is less than even 1%. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Ranil Wickramasinghe, the Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs, to appoint a Committee comprising of senior public officers representing the relevant fields to develop a Cultural Hub of South Asia in Colombo for the promotion of international arts and cultural performances and an exhibition focal point of South Asia with a view to creating a platform to perform and showcase and indigenous arts and culture of the country, was approved by the Cabinet.