Sri Lanka Suspends China Port City Project in Colombo.

05 March ,Colombo

Sri Lanka’s Cabinet Thursday decided to halt work on the Port City project in Colombo with immediate effect.

Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said that on a proposal made by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Cabinet suspended the implementation of the Port City project in Colombo for the next two weeks.

He said that the decision was taken on the basis of Interim Report submitted by a cabinet sub-committee appointed to review the project.

The report notes that the project was launched and is being implemented without relevant approvals from the concerned institutions.

The 1.5 billion dollar project is the single-largest foreign direct investment in Sri Lanka. In this
project, a Chinese public sector company seeks to reclaim 233 hectares of land from the sea next to Colombo port and develop it into a commercial and entertainment hub.

The Chinese company is to be given a portion of reclaimed land on freehold ownership basis and a section of land on a 99-year lease.

The Sirisena government has raised several doubts over the legality of the project, including legal and environmental clearances given by the earlier government of Mahinda Rajapaksa.