An 11-member Chinese expert team on assessment and reconstruction arrived in Colombo early Wednesday morning, signaling China is stepping up its relief efforts in the tsunami-hit island country's rehabilitation.

The task force groups specialists from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC), Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Civil Affairs. They are also scheduled to go to the Maldives.

The team will evaluate local conditions in the wake of the killer tsunami and help local governments in the country to resume the power supply and communication and reconstruct the infrastructure facilities, said a MOC officer with the team.

The experts will do their job in a more technical sense, said Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Sun Guoxiang. They will exchange views with local officials about the reconstruction plan so as to assess the country's damage conditions objectively and learn more about how to provide concrete help to the country, Sun said.

The expert team, the first of its kind in China as the international relief efforts move from emergency assistance to reconstruction aid, left China's capital Beijing for Sri Lanka on Monday evening.

Two more expert teams will also go to Indonesia and Thailand within days to help with the two countries' reconstruction, the MOC announced in Beijing on Monday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2005)