Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2019-04-02

The Indian Ocean: Defining Our Future' Ministerial Conference, 2019

- It has been found that the Indian Ocean has the potential to become the growth pole of the global economy in the future. Accordingly, a conference was held in Melbourne, Australia under the theme 'Maritime Order in the Indian Ocean' for the benefit of the Ocean Littoral States and the major maritime users to strengthen the freedom of navigating in the Indian Ocean and a conference of the senior representatives from 40 Indian Ocean Littoral States and the Indian Ocean Coastal Belt States was held in Colombo under the theme 'The Indian Ocean: Defining Our Future'. As has been proposed in the conference held in Colombo, the joint proposal made by Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Prime Minister and the Hon. Thilak Marapana, the Minister of Foreign Affairs to hold the conference of the Senior Representatives at the end of 2019 under the theme 'The Indian Ocean: Defining Our Future' in Colombo in collaboration with the Global Maritime Crime Programme of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, was approved by the Cabinet.