The Maldives first established a mission in Sri Lanka (then the Dominion of Ceylon) in July 1965, and today has a High Commission in Colombo.

This trend is observable not solely within small island developing states in the Indian Ocean like the Maldives and Sri Lanka, but also across the broader Indo-Pacific region, encompassing nations boasting more substantial and advanced economies.

In July 1976 the governments of the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India reached an agreement fixing the trijunction point between the three countries in the sea beyond the Gulf of Mannar.

[8] In February 2007, the then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a three-day official visit to the Maldives, expected to further consolidate the existing bilateral links between the two countries, and to strengthen cooperation in trade, tourism, education, and fisheries.

[13] The economy of the Maldives is heavily dependent on tourism, with tour operators often based in Sri Lanka and packages including both countries.

[14] In 2006 Sri Lanka Telecom and the Maldives state-run telephone company Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun commissioned a US$20 million joint venture to lay an undersea fibre-optic cable connecting Male to Colombo, Sri Lanka, with Japan’s NEC Corp as the main supplier.

[16] The Maldives has inadvertently fallen into a debt entanglement and now faces a situation reminiscent of neighboring Sri Lanka.

Like Sri Lanka, the Maldives has incurred billions of dollars in debt to China while seeking to rebuild its infrastructure following years of civil conflict.