Sri Lanka’s new leaders are banking on Chinese investment to revive a port project that became a symbol of the previous government’s excesses bankrolled by China.
Situated at the southern tip of the strategically located Indian Ocean nation, Hambantota gained notoriety as a port without ships and was the butt of opposition criticism of then Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tendency to throw Chinese money at vanity projects in order to line his pockets.
Following Rajapaksa’s ouster in January’s presidential election, the new government first toyed with the idea of turning the port into a ship-breaking yard, before deciding to make it a dockyard.
“We have US$1.5 billion sunk in the project and no revenue. We need to make use of it. We want Chinese investors to come and help turn it into a dockyard as well as invest in an industrial park there,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Harsha de Silva told the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview.
Sri Lanka promises to end deadlock over mega Chinese project
Among Sri Lanka’s leading economists, de Silva has been put in the foreign ministry to drive economic diplomacy in the national unity government put in place after parliamentary elections in August.