Amunugama stresses need to revitalise Asian-African cooperation

Minister of Higher Education and Research Dr. Sarath Amunugama, who led the Sri Lankan delegation to the Asian-African Leaders Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, as the Special Envoy of President Maithripala Sirisena, had stressed the importance of revitalizing Asian-African cooperation to further advance cross-regional trade and investment between the two continents.

He made this call while addressing the Leaders’ Summit in Jakarta on Thursday (23) to mark the 60th anniversary of the historic Asian-African Conference held in Bandung in April 1955.

At the Colombo Powers Conference held in Sri Lanka in April 1954, the Prime Ministers of Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia and Pakistan met and decided to convene the Asian-African Conference in Bandung the following year. The Bandung Conference was the precursor to the Non-Aligned Movement, of which Sri Lanka was also a founder member.

Speaking further at the Summit, Minister Amunugama said that it was an honour for Sri Lanka to have been among the five co-hosts of the 1955 Conference. Recalling President Sukarno’s opening speech at the Bandung Conference on the theme, “Let a New Asia and a New Africa be born”, he congratulated Indonesia for its leadership in setting up the AsianAfrican Centre in Bandung, declaring 24th April each year as the Asian-African Day and Bandung as the historic capital of Asian–African solidarity, paving the way for the contemporary rebirth of cooperation and partnership between people of the two continents.