TRINCOMALEE, January 14 (ChinaMil) --The amphibious dock landing ship "Jinggangshan" and the guided missile frigate "Hengshui" of the 15th escort taskforce of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN) (hereinafter referred to as the 15th taskforce) arrived at the Trincomalee port in eastern Sri Lanka on January 13, 2014, to start a three-day-long goodwill visit to Sri Lanka.

After the arrival of the taskforce, nearly one hundred people including Wu Jianghao, Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka, Rear Adm. Amara Sinha, commander of the Eastern Naval Command of the Sri Lankan Navy, staff members from the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka, local overseas Chinese and Chinese nationals as well as local residents visited the amphibious dock landing ship "Jinggangshan". In addition, Rear Adm. Jiang Zhonghua, commander of the 15th taskforce, called on Rear Adm. Amara Sinha at the Eastern Naval Command of the Sri Lankan Navy.

In the next few days, the warships-opening-day activities will be held on the amphibious dock landing ship "Jinggangshan" and the guided missile frigate "Hengshui" respectively; and the officers and men from the PLAN and the Sri Lanka Navy will carry out exchanges in such fields as equipment maintenance, damage control, medical rescue and sports competitions, according to sources.

Since the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Sri Lanka, the contacts between the two navies of China and Sri Lanka are very close, as evidenced by the fact that the PLAN’s warships visited Sri Lanka in 1985 as the first warship visit of the PLAN to other countries; and the Chinese naval escort taskforces visited Sri Lanka for many times during their trips to the waters of the Gulf of Aden for implementing the naval escort missions.