Colombo, Feb 14, : Sri Lankan Government has appointed the founder of IT major Infosys, Narayana Murthy, as the international advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona described this step as a bid to increase investments into the Information Technology sector in Sri Lanka.

"N. R. Narayana Murthy was appointed as the international adviser to the Sri Lankan President and he has accepted it," he said.

Rajapaksa had invited former Infosys chief at the Presidential Secretariat on Friday as the chief guest to the ceremonial launch of `2009-Year of English and Information Technology'.

He stated that the recent success of Indian IT sector has highly inspired Sri Lanka.

"It is for this reason that we have turned to India in addition to other countries for technical support to strengthen our own endeavours. We are honoured by the presence of Narayana Murthy," Rajapaksa said. (ANI)