Sri Lanka announced this week that permission for a Chinese company to buy 20 hectares of reclaimed land alongside the port in Colombo as freehold, has been withdrawn.
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China is Sri Lanka’s biggest lender and has been vital in terms of infrastructure investment in the country. He expressed the desire that Chinese enterprises undertaking projects in the industrial zone will meet quality standards and keep to schedule.
He said there was no doubt the industrial zone would promote the all-around development of Sri Lanka in the near future.
He said Sri Lanka and India will sign the Economic and Technology Cooperative Agreement by the end of this year and also enter in to a free trade agreement with China next year, while discussions are being held with Singapore officials to establish a free trade agreement.
The Prime Minister spoke on the need to establish a Sri Lanka-China Joint Committee, build a new city and carry out vocational and technical training in the industrial zone.
Opposition political parties and supporters of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa attend a rally in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Aug. 1, 2016.
Both President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were keen on revisiting the Chinese projects which according to them was over-priced. Instead, it will grant the state owned company a 99 year lease, as per a new agreement.
The Sri Lankan government suspended the Chinese projects pending investigations, and stopped the outright sale of land.
The reclamation represents the biggest-ever single foreign investment in Sri Lanka.
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The Premier delivering the keynote address at the opening session of the 12th Islamic Economic Forum in Jakarta today said with the hope of becoming the economic hub of the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka’s action plan is to introduce to a large database of products and large-scale economic reforms for infrastructure. It is this issue which prompted Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to propose the setting up of a joint Sri Lanka-China Committee to look into various aspects of Sino-Lankan projects in the island.
