Beijing — China's involvement in the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka is purely commercial and non-competitive and that there is no need for other nations to feel threatened, said a Sri Lankan official on Thursday.

"The first ship will arrive at the Hambantota port on November 19, as the port will be ready to receive large vessels by then," Gamini Peiris, Sri Lanka's Minister of External Affairs, told China Daily during an exclusive interview in Beijing.

Peiris however, refuted recent media speculation that China has strategic intentions in funding the port.

"It is a commercial transaction between China and Sri Lanka, and there is no reason for others to feel threatened by their cooperation," Peiris said.

Sri Lanka spent more than three decades fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam, a militant group based in the country's north. The Tigers were defeated in May 2009 but at the cost of heavy damage to the country's economy and the deaths of many civilians.

Now that the war is over, Peiris said, there are three things the country needs most — investment, trade and tourism.

The minister said his country is now safe and welcomed more Chinese enterprises to invest in Sri Lanka.

"China is helping us build roads linking the capital Colombo to the southern area, and it is also going to build nine more roads in the northern area. That way the people of Sri Lanka can fully enjoy the fruits of economic development," Peiris said.

While in Beijing, the foreign minister attended a forum hosted by the China Institute of International Studies where he talked about the lessons Sri Lanka has learned in combating terrorism.

"The most important lesson we have learned is that if a country wants to succeed in their war on terror, the effort has to be made by the country itself, not by a foreign army of another country. Because intuitively people will support their own inland terrorists and gang up against the foreign army as they will consider them as the invading force. It has happened in many countries already. Patriotism is part of people's instincts," Peiris said.

Before landing in Beijing, he visited Sichuan and Shanghai, for the first time as the minister of external affairs of Sri Lanka.

"I look forward to coming here again some time later," Peiris said.