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Sri Lankan PM announces to go ahead with China-funded Port City project

Xinhua, January 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has announced that his government will go ahead with a multi billion U.S. dollar port city project in the capital funded by China after it was suspended earlier last year.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wickremesinghe said that his government also invited Chinese investors to Sri Lanka.

When asked by the media about China's role in Sri Lanka's development, Wickremesinghe noted that China is one of the largest economic powers in the world, and within Sri Lanka, there is a large number of projects in infrastructure development which were funded by the Chinese government.

"So we are going ahead with many of those projects including the Port City, the further development of the Hambantota Harbour. But we've also said we would like to see Chinese investments," the prime minister said.

He further said that infrastructure development alone is not sufficient and that his government is now discussing of bringing in Chinese investments into Sri Lanka.

"I think the Chinese government has also decided that some of its manufacturing industries should move out and Sri Lankan seems to be one of the locations for their industries to move out," he said.

"We are looking at the Chinese participation in the logistics hub of Sri Lanka as well as further investments in the real-estate sector."

The 1.4 billion dollar mega port city project is Sri Lanka's largest foreign investment and is set to attract millions of dollars as investments upon its completion.

The project was suspended by the Sirisena administration in March due to a review on its agreement and some other aspects of the project, but the government has now said that project will resume by February.

The government has already said that it will include the project in its megapolis development plan in order to develop the capital Colombo. Endit