Sri Lanka said it will develop the West Container Terminal (WCT) at the Colombo Port, along with India and Japan.
The decision comes a month after the Rajapaksa government ejected the two partners from a 2019 tripartite agreement to jointly develop the East Container Terminal (ECT), citing resistance to “foreign involvement”.
Background:
Both India and Japan had expressed displeasure about Colombo “unilaterally” pulling out of the 2019 agreement.
The deal had been signed by the former Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe government.
The February 1 decision came amid mounting opposition from port worker unions and sections of the clergy to “foreign involvement” in the country’s national assets.
The Rajapaksa government has offered India and Japan the WCT as an alternative, allowing higher stakes.
In the ECT project agreed upon earlier, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) was to hold majority 51%, but in the WCT proposal, India and Japan will be accorded 85% stake, as is the case in the nearby Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), where China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited holds 85%, the government said.
The West Container Terminal, however, has to be built from scratch, requiring a much higher investment.
The WCT is adjacent to the China-run CICT and just a couple of kilometres away from the China-backed Port City being built on reclaimed land, making it a strategically desirable spot for India, whose concerns over China’s presence in Sri Lanka are well known.