The Perimeter Watch: Sri Lanka & Maldives | Volume 1 | No 7
The Perimeter Watch: Sri Lanka & Maldives captures a wave of strategic alignments, regional cooperation, and domestic resilience-building. Sri Lanka deepened social development and counter-trafficking ties with Thailand, hosted the IORA-led Women in Maritime delegation, and prepared to sign an MoU with China’s Chongqing Transmission Corporation to boost media collaboration. Colombo also pursued enhanced defence cooperation with Egypt and explored stronger EU engagement with Poland amid global economic shifts. Domestically, the Defence Ministry launched its Internal Affairs Unit to combat corruption, while Sri Lanka weathered a ransomware attack on its pensions department and tackled rising inflation and COVID subvariants. In the Maldives, India launched 13 new community projects under HICDP, and Thailand inked a healthcare MoU, praised by WHO as a model for regional cooperation. The Maldives also joined the Blue Planet Alliance and called for collective climate action at IORA. Meetings with India, Hong Kong, Russia, and other partners advanced defence, legal, and economic cooperation. Meanwhile, the President declared 2026 as the Year of National Innovation to expand the country’s creative economy and promote homegrown enterprise.
