``It is in the business plan to expand into new areas for cargo and people and also increase the frequencies to the destinations we already fly to,'' tourism and civil aviation minister Dharmasiri Senanayake told Reuters in an interview.

He said the new plans came into place after the government sold a 40 per cent stake and management of Air Lanka to Dubai's Emirates airlines for $70 million earlier this year.

``We are studying the possibility of flying to two points in Australia, that is Melbourne and Sydney. We are also looking at Johannesburg and Russia,'' Senanayake said.

Russia, he said, was a vast untapped market for tourism and Air Lanka planned to introduce several charter flights to that country.

He said the airline was also aiming to target business travellers and tourists to and from South Africa.

``We also want toincrease our frequencies to London, Paris and Amsterdam,'' the minister said.

``We have bilateral agreements with some 55 countries but are flying to only 22.''

Senanayake said Sri Lanka was also looking to liberalise its aviation policy by allowing more airlines to land at its Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake, 30 km (20 miles) north of the capital Colombo.

``British Airways has confirmed they will return to Sri Lanka next year. We also negotiated to get Korean Air to come back but that has been delayed now because of the crisis there,'' Senanayake said.

British Airways stopped flying to Sri Lanka early this year because of mounting losses on the route and a loss of market share to charter operators.

Senanayake said South Asian countries were working on a deal to link up more cities and increase intra-regional flights.

``We are trying to work out some multilateral agreements with airline companies and looking at the possibility of using a South Asian nation as a second stopoverpoint,'' Senanayake said.

He said the seven members of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) were in the process of negotiating the agreements.

SAARC groups India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan,Pakistan and the Maldives.