Japanese consultant provides expertise on oil spill management

Kentaro Sonoura, M. P. and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan, visited Sri Lanka from 15th to 16th February.

During his stay, he held meetings with President Maithripala Sirisena and other Sri Lankan leaders in order to promote bilateral relationships between the two countries and also participated in the closing ceremony of oil spill incident management training programme conducted under the project providing advisory services for improving oil spill management capabilities of Sri Lanka Coast Guard.

This was conducted under the Japanese grant aid and as a collaborative training between Japanese Coast Guard and the Sri Lankan Coast Guard under the Maritime Disaster Measure and Marine Environment Protection project.

Under its sub component, advisory services for improving oil spill management capabilities of Sri Lanka Coast Guard comprised of three activities. Basic training for oil spill incident in the coastal sea areas was conducted successfully with 30m –class patrol vessels provided by Japan 2018 and equipment on the vessels. Under this project Japan Coast Guard has provided short term experts on oil spill, equipment for oil spill combat training and necessary cost for dispatch and activities of short term experts. After the training Sri Lankan Coast Guard personnel will be able to combat oil spill incidents in the coastal sea area and protect marine and coastal environment from pollution.

The closing ceremony of its first activity was marked on 15th February at the Colombo Port at the presence of Sonoura and other guests representing Government of Japan, Japanese Coast Guard and Sri Lankan Coast Guard. Government of Japan hopes these initiatives will further consolidate the “Japan-sri Lanka Comprehensive Partnership” in the areas such as maritime security and development cooperation including realization of free and open Indo-pacific.