The Korea International Cooperation Agency, (KOICA) provided a grant worth four million USD to the Road Development Authority through the Ministry of Highways. The Record of Discussion for the project was signed on Nov 30, at the Ministry of Highways.

Country Director of the KOICA Sri Lanka Office, Kang Youn Hwa, Secretary of the Ministry of Highways RWR Pemasiri and representatives of the Road Development Authority were in attendance at the signing ceremony.

The project objective is to produce and implement a traffic data analysis and management system at the national level for better transport infrastructure development in Sri Lanka. The project will be implemented by the Road Development Authority and is targeted to be completed in 2025.

Based on Korea’s advanced road traffic system and road traffic data management expertise, KOICA will dispatch a number of Korean transportation experts who will be working with the Road Development Authority on various components of this project.

The project outcomes include developing a national-level traffic data management plan, conducting capacity building for the Road Development Authority personnel, establishing traffic database and operation management system and providing equipment for the traffic database management system. This project will be expected to contribute to developing an advanced road transport plan and to the strengthening of road transport capacity in Sri Lanka.

KOICA has supported the transportation sector in Sri Lanka previously under the Technical Assistance for Advanced Traffic Management System in Colombo Metropolitan Region project (2013-2017) with a successful partnership. Continuing the goodwill, the Korean Government has furthered its grant aid by 4 million USD towards the development of the transportation sector of Sri Lanka under the newly signed Record of Discussion for the new project.

At the small ceremony held at the Ministry of Highways to sign the Record of Discussion for the project the Country Director KOICA stated “KOICA is always looking forward to supporting our partner countries to make a sustainable change. The Republic of Korea, having made giant strides in the transportation sector over the years, we are more than happy to share our expertise and knowledge with developing countries with a such potential as Sri Lanka. KOICA has positive experiences previously working with the Road Development Authority with the successfully completed advanced traffic management system project and we look forward to a successful partnership in this project as well.”

The secretary, Ministry of Highways in his short address extended their gratitude towards the government of the Republic of Korea for the continued support given to Sri Lanka. He reminisced with gratitude the support given by KOICA in the aftermath of the Tsunami disaster to build the Mahanama Bridge in Matara. He reassured the fullest cooperation and support by the Government counterparts to ensure that the project is successfully implemented.

KOICA, government agency of the Republic of Korea, contributes to the advancement of international cooperation through various projects that build friendly and collaborative relationships and mutual exchanges between Korea and developing countries and support the economic and social development in developing countries, under the mission of ‘Leave no one behind with People centered Peace and Prosperity.’