Sri Lanka’s Minister of City Planning and Water Supply, Rauff Hakeem, announced that the country is keen on importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar as part of plans to shift to clean energy, reported Trade Arabia.

Hakeem said energy would be among some of the sectors to be discussed during Sri Lankan President’s, Maithripala Sirisena, planned state visit to Qatar in 2017 to boost trade ties. He added: ““LNG-generated power plants are going to be the next futuristic power generation option.

In order to bridge the gap of our energy supplies, we want to move away from coal to LNG,” according to Gulf Times.

Hakeem’s comments came on the sidelines of an investment forum hosted by Doha Bank revolving around investment opportunities for Qataris in Sri Lanka in the maritime, aviation, education, energy, commercial services, tourism, manufacturing, infrastructure, and agriculture sectors.

 He stated that : “there is a free trade agreement that we are finalizing with Qatar and hopefully that would be signed when the president visits the country next year. The free trade agreement will further facilitate better bilateral trade ties between Qatar and Sri Lanka.”