Thursday, 22 August 2013 01:02
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Advance teams spoke highly of CHOGM
Second batch of advance teams to arrive in Colombo tomorrow
Govt. expects large participation compared to other summits
Does not anticipate major disruptions to daily life in the capital facilities
By Dharisha Bastians
The Government yesterday announced that the country was all set to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2013 in Colombo and vowed the summit would cause minimum disruption to public life.
Advance country teams who were in Sri Lanka this week to review summit preparations hailed the country’s ability and readiness to host CHOGM 2013, Monitoring MP for the Ministry of External Affairs Sajin Vaas Gunewardane told a news conference yesterday.
“Sixteen countries and about 100 participants extensively reviewed the Government’s summit facilities and accommodation for the meeting and they spoke highly of our preparedness to host CHOGM at the wrap up meeting,” Gunewardane said.
He added that the next batch of advance teams from 15 countries would arrive in Colombo on Friday (23) and review arrangements here until Sunday (25).
“The Government expects an encouraging number of participants even in comparison to other CHOGMs when the summit takes place in November,” the Monitoring MP said.
Gunewardane said that as a country Sri Lanka already had the necessary infrastructure to host a summit of this scale.
“We have the hotels and the conference facilities – all that is required is an upgrade of existing facilities,” he explained.
Gunewardane added that the Government does not anticipate that CHOGM will disrupt public life in the capital in a big way, although road closures were to be expected during VVIP movements.
