Visit Malaysia hassle free

By Lionel Yodhasinghe

The need to recognise currencies of different neighbouring countries is an essential requirement today to strengthen bilateral and business relations among the nations in the region.

However, many countries have still failed to do so, therefore, each local traveller needs to change his or her money four times, once at home before embarkation his money into US$ or UK pound, then after disembarkation, that US$ into the currency of the particular country that person is visiting, again the remaining money into US$ before leaving that country and last at home, the foreign currency into local currency.

This repeated process would kill a visitor's time and moreover hit the customer's pocket though it makes some business as commission to banks or money exchangers.

The close neighbours Sri Lanka and India, have had the biggest Free Trade Agreements in operation for several years, but the Indian Banks still do not accept Sri Lankan currency for encashment on their soil. We boast about regional cooperation among SAARC countries but those who want to visit these countries only understand the difficulty and other obstacles in obtaining a visa and changing currency.

However, Malaysia is an exceptional regional friend. A group of visiting Sri Lankan journalists was pleased to see that the CIMB bank at the Kuala Lumpur airport offered to encash Sri Lankan currency into Malaysian currency and vice versa. The CIMB, besides major currencies such as US$ and UK pound, accepts foreign currencies from almost all countries in the region and Middle East.

It is a very laudable decision by the Malaysian authorities, taken towards strengthening friendship and relations in the field of trade, travel, tourism and regional cooperation.

The journalists were really delighted to see the CIMB bank encashing Sri Lankan currency at the Kuala Lumpur airport, which would certainly gladden the harts of Sri Lankans who visited Malaysia during the Malaysia 2007 tourism campaign. At a time we hear of gloomy stories of the Sri Lankan rupee, CIMB's offer shows Malaysia's, respect towards a small regional friend.