The project to digitise Sri Lanka’s television broadcasting system, which started in 2019, was halted due to the suspension of foreign loans due to the economic crisis faced by the country.
With the success of the debt restructuring agreements made with the IMF, the Japanese Government has agreed to provide loan assistance again. According to the request of Minister of Transport, Highways and Mass Media, Dr. Bandula Gunawardena, the Japanese Government has decided to quickly restart the huge project with a total project cost of 17 billion Yen under a loan amount of 13.5 billion Yen.
A special discussion on this was held at the Minister’s invitation under the patronage of the Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Mizukoshi Hideaki at the Ministry of Mass Media.
Presently television broadcasting in Sri Lanka is done under analog technology and under this project the plan is to convert television broadcasting to digital technology. Through this, the people of Sri Lanka will have the facility to watch all television channels under digital HD technology without paying any money.
In this discussion, special attention was paid to the prompt initiation of this project with the support of the Japanese Government with the technical and financial support of JICA.
Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Mizukoshi Hideaki, Second Secretary of Japanese Embassy Kaori Imai and Chief Representative of JICA Sri Lanka Tetsuya Yamada and a delegation representing the Japanese Government joined the discussion.
Secretary to the Ministry of Mass Media Anusha Palpita, Management Unit of DTEB Project’s Project Director Prasanga Rajapaksa and other representatives joined this event representing Sri Lanka.
