10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Nalin Bandara Jayamaha

Samagi Jana Balawegaya· Kurunegala· 18 December 2024 ·Oral question: Oral Questions (Questions 1–10)

Foreign Affairs
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Hon. Nalin Bandara Jayamaha emphasized the importance of bilateral agreements for foreign direct investment and welcomed President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s engagement with Indian business leaders. He questioned whether the Government would retract its earlier opposition to closer economic integration with India, including ETCA, energy interconnections, pipeline links, use of the Indian Rupee, and wider land, sea, and air connectivity, given the President’s recent endorsement of policies previously advanced by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Thank you for the clear answer. Bilateral agreements are vital for FDI. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met India’s top business leaders. We earlier said we should be closely aligned with India, strengthen ETCA, interconnect the grid, pipeline links, use Indian Rupee here, and integrate by land, sea, and air. You opposed these then, saying economic and political alignment with India would prevent us dealing with other countries. Now we saw the President go to India and endorse what Ranil Wickremesinghe agreed to. My first supplementary: will you now retract your previous rhetoric against India and ETCA?

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Wednesday, 18 December 2024 ·No. 1735286612086554 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Nalin Bandara Jayamaha. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 18 December 2024. No. 1735286612086554. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/12103