Sri Lanka, Australia pledge to further strengthen ties

Sri Lanka and Australia have agreed to further strengthen its bilateral relations as senior officials from the two countries met for discussions in capital Colombo this week, the foreign ministry said here on Friday.

The First Round of the Senior Officials' talks between Sri Lanka and Australia served as the first formal process to comprehensively review the bilateral relationship spanning over six decades.

The talks broadly focused on bilateral trade, investment and economic diplomacy, development partnership, Sri Lanka's reconciliation process, including regional and multilateral issues.

Identifying new areas of cooperation under Australia's future development assistance priorities for Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan government's new policies for growth and development, both sides agreed to further build on the added momentum in the bilateral partnership, follow-up on the discussions and regularly review progress, the foreign ministry said.

The next Senior Officials' talks will be held in the first quarter of 2017.