Over 163,000 Chinese tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka from January to July this year, making China the second largest market for Sri Lanka tourism, statistics from the Tourism Ministry showed here on Tuesday.

According to the statistics, 27,460 Chinese tourists arrived during the month of July, out of which 27,418 arrived by air and 42 by sea.

Sri Lankan Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said last month that he had recently held talks with China's tourism and airline officials to encourage more Chinese visitors to the country.

In total, overall tourist arrivals last month exceeded 200,000 recording a 6.0-percent growth when compared with the same period last year.

India, China and Britain remained the leading markets with India generating 14 percent of the total traffic received in July, China generating 13 percent and Britain generating 12 percent.

The tourism ministry said in a statement that till July, Sri Lanka had received 1,382,476 tourists, recording a 13.7-percent growth compared to the first seven months of last year.