Sri Lanka president to visit India in first overseas trip

Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (2R) leaves after the opening ceremony of the country's tenth parliament at the national parliament in Colombo on November 21, 2024. Sri Lanka's new leader on November 21 backed a controversial IMF bailout, marking a U-turn from his election pledge to renegotiate the deal secured by his predecessor. (Photo by Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP)

(AFP) - Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will travel to India on Sunday for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first overseas visit as head of state, the government said Tuesday.

Leaders of the island nation typically make their first visit to regional powerhouse India, which is fiercely competing with China for influence in the Indian Ocean.

Dissanayake will spend three days in India meeting with Modi and several other officials, information minister Nalinda Jayatissa told reporters.

Leftist Dissanayake came to power in September on a pledge to fight corruption and tightened his grip on power after his party won a landslide in snap parliamentary polls last month.

New Delhi has been concerned about Beijing's growing toehold in Sri Lanka, which it sees as being within its sphere of geopolitical influence.

India has stepped up infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka in recent years, but China is Sri Lanka's largest bilateral lender.

Loans from Chinese banks have funded large-scale infrastructure projects, some of which have proved to be white elephants.

Dissanayake is expected to travel to Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders sometime next month, the government had announced earlier.

Sri Lanka suffered its worst financial crisis in 2022 when it ran out of foreign exchange to pay for essential imports such as food, fuel and medicines, and defaulted on its $46 billion foreign debt.

China is Sri Lanka's largest single lender, accounting for more than half of the island's $13.8 billion bilateral debt at the time of default.

India is in third place with 12 percent of the debt while Japan is second with 19.5 percent.

© Agence France-Presse