Saudi Arabia has provided Sri Lanka with US$50m to establish a fully equipped faculty of medicine at the Sabaragamuwa University in Ratnapura.
The agreement was signed between Khaled Sulaiman Al-Khudairy, vice chairman and managing director of the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), and RHS Samaratunga, secretary to the ministry of finance.
The funds will be used to construct infrastructure facilities and to provide undergraduates with teaching and learning facilities, such as laboratories, that will help provide them with a world-class medical education.
‘We hope to help Sri Lanka not only in education; we will consider more such facilities in health, roads, irrigation, community development, and agricultural sectors,’ said Abdulnasser Al-Harthy, Saudi Ambassador in Colombo.
Al-Harthy went onto say that this is one of several projects funded by the SFD, which has given R1.4bn (US$373m) to Sri Lanka as soft loans and grants since the 1980s.
Source: LaingBuisson
-Agencies
