Tasmania – Looking at an isle-to-isle partnership
Will Hodgman
The first-ever high-level business delegation led by Will Hodgman, the Prime Minister of Tasmania, “the ‘holiday isle’ of Australia” visited Colombo last week in an effort to establish government, business and sporting ties with Sri Lanka. It was his first time to the Indian Ocean isle and was accompanied by a 30-member Aussie delegation from the tiny isle of a white sized dot below Australia, a few hours away from Melbourne. Unabashedly barracking for the Aussie team, Mr.Hodgman, in an interview with the Business Times, spoke about their recent test cricket disaster with Sri Lanka saying, “We play great cricket but we would like to forget the recent test matches.
” Mr. Hodgman was joined by Matthew Groom, Minister of State Growth, Energy, Environment, Parks and Heritage along with business leaders from tertiary educational and vocational training sector, renewable energy industry, maritime and advanced manufacturing industries and tourism and hospitality experts. With his government just 2-years in the making, he says the next mission will be sooner and longer. “This is a fact finding mission and we are currently focusing on South Asia to promote our tourism, education and investment in renewable energy.”
When it was pointed out that Sri Lanka too is actively promoting tourism, he assured that it can always a win-win situation (unlike cricket).
“As island economies of a similar size Sri Lanka and Tasmania share some of the same challenges, and can share both our common and unique experiences to together build on our respective strengths,” he says. He lamented that there’re only 50 Sri Lankan students in Tasmania. “We want more students from Sri Lanka to choose Tasmania,” he said adding that the delegation has some members promoting education – especially in the University of Tasmania. In the areas of maritime and marine sciences and shipbuilding, the potential for targeted education programmes has been identified through the work of both the Australian Maritime College and the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Science at the University of Tasmania, and the Colombo International Nautical and Engineering College – all during this 3-day visit.
The two countries currently have a modest and narrow merchandise trading relationship, he said pointing out that Sri Lanka is their 14th largest export market ahead of the UK, Canada and Germany. Exports to Sri Lanka recorded AUS$ 53.7 million last year led overwhelmingly by milk and cream commodities. Mr. Hodgman finds similarities in Sri Lankan’s developing economy and that of Tasmania as its relatively small size island status presents opportunities for the state. “We have seen how Sri Lanka is beginning to position itself as a luxury tourism destination and that is something Tasmania knows quite a bit.” The Premier is hoping that this first-ever visit to Sri Lanka by a Tasmanian Government official would be the beginning of partnerships that will last into the future and observes Sri Lankans’ trademark ‘friendliness’ with a smile.