A prominent former Indian Minister has urged Sri Lanka to earn major revenue by exporting wind energy to the massive Indian market. Shri Suresh Prabhu, the Minister of Commerce & Industry during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first term and Minister of Power under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, made these comments addressing the opening session of Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2019 which commenced earlier today at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel Colombo. Prabhu said that there is potential for such a trade deal as India lacks the wind strength seen in Sri Lanka. “In India, even just across the coast from Sri Lanka in South India, the plant load factor of a wind mill will be less than 20%. In Sri Lanka, because of its unique location, it would be at least 40%. So a wind farm in India can only generate half of what could be generated from a similar wind farm in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s potential in wind can be 40,000 – 50,000 megawatts. If you export that to India just imagine the amount of revenue you could get,” he said. As a model for such an agreement he pointed out that India had imported hydropower from Bhutan in the early 2000s, and how the export revenue gained by Bhutan had led to a rapid rise in its per capita income.