China's President Xi Jinping to visit Sri Lanka next week

Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first visit to India as head of state on a regional visit starting this week which will also take in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Tajikistan, the Economic Times reports.

Xi will begin his trip in Tajikistan where he will attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on Thursday and Friday, the ministry said.

China, Russia and four Central Asian nations - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - formed the group in 2001 as a regional security bloc to fight threats posed by radical Islam and drug trafficking from neighbouring Afghanistan.

After that Xi will travel to the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India, on a visit which ends on Sept. 19, the ministry said, without giving exact dates for when he will be in each country.

From economic parity in 1980, China’s growth has outstripped India’s fourfold and Beijing has sought to recycle some of its vast export surpluses into foreign investments in resources and infrastructure in South Asia to feed its industrial machine.

-adaderana.lk