{"id":3317,"date":"2019-05-30T21:27:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T15:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=3317"},"modified":"2019-05-30T21:27:23","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T15:57:23","slug":"sri-lanka-japan-india-sign-deal-to-develop-east-container-terminal-at-colombo-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/sri-lanka-japan-india-sign-deal-to-develop-east-container-terminal-at-colombo-port\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka, Japan, India sign deal to develop East Container Terminal at Colombo Port"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relevant for Prelims and GS paper 2(India and its neighbours):-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka, Japan and India on Tuesday signed an agreement to jointly develop the East Container Terminal at the Colombo Port. The joint initiative is estimated to cost between $500 million and $700 million, a senior official of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Southern Development told\u00a0The Hindu<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) is significant, given that the countries had been negotiating the deal since last year, with little success. As per the agreement signed on Tuesday, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) retains 100% ownership of the East Container Terminal (ECT), while the Terminal Operations Company, conducting its operations, is jointly owned, the SLPA said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka will hold a 51 per cent-stake in the project and the joint venture partners will retain 49%.<\/p>\n

The ECT is located some 3 km away from the China-backed international financial city, known popularly as \u201cport city\u201d, being built on reclaimed land on Colombo\u2019s sea front.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapan is likely to provide a 40-year soft loan with a 0.1 percent interest rate,\u201d said Sudarshana Gunawardana, Director of Development Communications at the Prime Minister\u2019s office. The SLPA described the \u201cenvisaged Japanese loan\u201d as \u201cone of the best loan terms Sri Lanka has obtained\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Details of India\u2019s contribution to the initiative are awaited, but New Delhi\u2019s interest in partnering the project is well known. Over 70 per cent of the transhipment business at the strategically located ECT is linked to India, according to official sources.<\/p>\n

However, last year, India\u2019s possible role in developing the terminal had become a major flashpoint within the government. President Maithripala Sirisena had opposed any Indian involvement in the project, as roping in foreign actors for developing \u201cnational assets\u201d remains a politically sensitive call in the island, especially among nationalist trade unions. Mr. Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had a\u00a0heated argument on the matter\u00a0during a cabinet meeting in October 2018, with the PM apparently more inclined towards allowing Indian participation.<\/p>\n

While Japan had been part of negotiations even last year, the project assumed a predominantly \u2018Sri Lanka-India\u2019 dimension, especially in the local media. Japan has been a long-standing partner of Sri Lanka, and one of Sri Lanka\u2019s biggest donors in the past decades. Japan also helped develop of the Jaya Container Terminal at the Colombo Port, supporting its operations since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

The specific terms of the agreement to jointly develop the ECT will soon be finalised at a joint working group meeting, a diplomatic source said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relevant for Prelims and GS paper 2(India and its neighbours):- Sri Lanka, Japan and India on Tuesday signed an agreement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[817,845,413,352,392],"class_list":["post-3317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-gs","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-ias","tag-prelims","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3318,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3317\/revisions\/3318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}