Sri Lanka was unanimously re-elected as the Chair of the UNESCAP – United Nations Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific - Committee on Information and Communication Technology.

At the meeting of UN-ESCAP’s ICT Committee held in Bangkok yesterday, a resolution was adopted unanimously requesting the Sri Lankan representative, Mr. Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to the President, who has a close association with the development of ICT in Sri Lanka, to continue in office as its chairman, to which position he was similarly elected last year.

Mr. Weeratunga attributes Sri Lanka's unanimous election to the chair of the prestigious Committee to the progress Sri Lanka has achieved in ICT during the past three years. He believes that Sri Lanka could contribute much to the advance of ICT in the developing countries from the Chair of the UNESCAP's ICT committee.

In particular Sri Lanka hopes to launch common programs jointly with other countries to deploy ICT for national development under various sectors.

The member countries of UNESCAP noted with appreciation the progress that Sri Lanka had made in ICT in the past three years, with the level of Computer Literacy being raised from 03 per cent to nearly 25 per cent of population. It also noted the significant progress that Sri Lanka had made in taking ICT to the rural areas, and the rapid spread of modern communication technology and strategies in the country.

Mr. Weeratunga is also a key motivator in the functioning of the Presidential Task Force of English Language and ICT, and is closely associated with the progress of the Governments initiative for e-Governance in Sri Lanka. He is currently Chairman of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka and was a former Chairman of Sri Lanka’s Information & Communication Technology Authority (ICTA).