COLOMBO, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 150,000 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka last month, recording a 0.5 percent growth when compared to the same period last year, official statistics from Sri Lanka's Tourism Ministry showed here Thursday.

According to the Ministry, the leading five markets were India, China, Britain, Germany and Australia.

So far, over 1.8 million tourists have arrived in the island till October this year, with the industry expecting at least 2.5 million tourists by the end of the year.

Out of the total number, 228,000 Chinese tourists have visited the country this year, with October alone recording 18,800 Chinese arrivals.

With the country currently facing a political crisis, Sri Lanka's new government said this week that the recent travel advisories which had been issued by some foreign governments against visiting Sri Lanka was unnecessary as public life remained largely undisrupted by the ongoing political turbulence and tourism had not been subjected to any inconvenience.

The new Foreign Minister, Dr. Sarath Amunugama said the new government was fully committed to safeguarding and improving the tourism industry and new projects would be launched to increase its arrivals.