Colombo: Sri Lanka will resume flights from the northern Jaffna peninsula to Chennai by next week, a senior minister has said, a move that will help the cash-strapped country’s tourism sector and provide a fillip to its beleaguered economy.
The tourism sector is the main source of foreign exchange earnings for Sri Lanka.
However, the onset of the pandemic in 2020 severely crippled the tourism sector and was one of the major reasons for Sri Lanka’s economic travails.
The island nation’s earnings from international tourist arrivals for November touched USD 107.5 billion, with the cumulative tally in the first eleven months of the year notching up a whopping USD 1129.4 million, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
“The flights to India from Palaly will resume soon, most probably by December 12,” Sri Lanka’s Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told Parliament on Monday.
