A chance encounter with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe at the Dubai International Airport allowed Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to hold a short informal interaction with the chief of the island nation and extend him an invite to the forthcoming edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit to be held in Calcutta next year.

Banerjee, who is on her way to Madrid for an official visit to attract business investments and forge tie-ups in the publishing sector as well as in soccer, was in Dubai for a stopover. The Sri Lankan President, also en route to Madrid and then on to Havana, was also at the venue midway in his transit. The two leaders reportedly had a meeting at the airport lounge where Banerjee gifted the President one of her self-made paintings.

“HE the President of Sri Lanka extended a cordial invitation to me to visit Sri Lanka. It was a pleasant interaction with deep implications,” Banerjee posted on her X timeline. She reportedly stressed on the long-standing relationship between the two people and shared her experiences of visiting Sri Lanka when she held the chair of union youth and sports affairs ministry back in the early 1090s.