Speaking at the opening session of the G77+China Summit, he pointed out that for decades, Cuba has been a champion of the efforts to solve the problems of the so-called Third World countries, for which he congratulated the Cuban people and their leadership, and welcomed the holding of this meeting.

Before more than 100 representatives of member nations of the Group, gathered in Havana’s International Conference Center, Wickremesinghe affirmed that technologies play a crucial role in the efforts to achieve the sustainable progress of nations.

He affirmed that the countries of the South are witnessing an increase in their historic disadvantage with the widening of the technological gap, for which reason he stressed the imperative of promoting scientific cooperation and human resources training among the G77 countries and China, a group that brings together three quarters of the world’s population. Wickremesinghe affirmed that his country structures its economic performance in the midst of the global crisis, and stressed that science and technology have a decisive role in achieving the desired development.

Currently in Sri Lanka, we do not have the capacity to train enough specialists, so they create universities for that purpose with the support of nations like India, he said.

The Sri Lankan head of State underscored the involvement of new technologies in the fight against climate change, and the urgency of creating the Science and Technology Consortium for the South, in order to achieve industrialization, the production of medicines and Artificial Intelligence.

He also called to address the problem of the emigration of human resources from developing countries by creating opportunities in the nations of the Global South.

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