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Chargé d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka Hu Wei and Water Supply Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara yesterday signed a Supplementary Agreement to the MoU on water research and technology cooperation, on behalf of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Ministry of Water Supply of Sri Lanka respectively.

It is a follow-up of the importance consensus reached by Senior Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi with both   President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on water supply and technology cooperation between the two countries during the recent high-level meeting in Colombo.

The original MoU was inked in March 2015, mainly aiming to tackle the Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) and provide clean drinking water for CKDu prevalence areas in Sri Lanka.

According to the MoU, a state-of-the-art Joint Research and Demonstration Center for Water Technology (JRDC) has been established recently in the campus of University of Peradeniya, Kandy with total construction area of 5000, under the Chinese grant of over RMB 124 million (LKR 3.4 billion) In the next 5 years, the Chinese Academy of Sciences will keep funding the cooperation of the JRDC with RMB 6-8 million (LKR165-220 million) per year. 

More significantly, three groundwater purification demonstration projects and more than 20 rainwater harvesting devices have been built in the CKDu affected areas in Sri Lanka to provide high-quality drinking water to more than 4,000 villagers and 1,300 primary school students. Besides, during the past five years, 66 water and medical professionals took part in training programs by the CAS, and currently 53 Sri Lankan graduate students (including 19 Ph.D students) are studying in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). 

Secretary Dr.(Eng.) Priyath B.Wickrama and Additional Secretary A.C.M. Nafeel from the Ministry of Water Supply, Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe, National Coordinator of Renal Diseases and Prevention Unit of Health Ministry, Prof. Upul B Dissanayake, Vice Chancellor of University of Peradeniya, and Dr. S K Weragoda, Project Director of China-Sri Lanka Research Grant Project were present at the signing ceremony.