Sri Lankan PM urges regional cooperation for small countries' recovering from COVID-19

COLOMBO, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has emphasized the need to accelerate South-South cooperation to help small countries in their recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, local media reported Wednesday.

Addressing the 77th Session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) via a video message, Rajapaksa said Sri Lanka has made remarkable progress in controlling the spread of COVID-19 with a very low death rate and a high recovery rate after efforts made in case detection, contact tracing, quarantining and patient treatment.

He said Sri Lanka's robust public healthcare system provided free access to health and helped control the pandemic.

The prime minister further said Sri Lanka was keen on strengthening its regional ties while emphasizing the need to accelerate the South-South cooperation.

"Towards that end, we believe UNESCAP should commit itself to be relevant and responsive with measures such as assisting small countries with pandemic recovery and vaccination programs encouraging growth of foreign employment opportunities, promoting eco-tourism and health-tourism and encouraging investments into and find markets for emerging nations," he said.

The 77th UNESCAP session is being held at the United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok via video conferencing from April 26 to 29 under the theme "Building back better from crises through regional cooperation in Asia and the Pacific."