Sri Lanka announces $40 bln mega-development project
Sri Lanka’s president announced on Friday a $40 billion mega-development project to build a new city over the next 15 years in a push to attract more foreign investment to the Indian Ocean island nation.
However, he gave no indication of how the cash-strapped country would raise such a large sum of money. The International Monetary Fund has urged Colombo not to loosen monetary and fiscal policies and it is already having to borrow heavily to cover a large budget deficit.
The project envisages the construction of industrial parks, sports complexes, IT centres and other infrastructure in a huge new metropolitan area covering some 3,700 square kilometres.
Officials say the aim is to tap funds from both private and public sectors and above all from foreign investors, especially from Asian giants China and India, but they offered no details on financing or other details of the project.
“This is one of the main steps of the new government to make this country a developed nation,” President Maithripala Sirisena, in power for a year, said at the official launch of the project.
The government said it hopes to win parliamentary approval for its plans within the next six months and for construction to begin by the end of 2016.
The project includes a $1.4 billion, Chinese-backed real estate project that got a final green light this month after the government suspended it last year citing various irregularities including a lack of proper permits.
That project involves the construction of apartments, shopping malls, a water sports area, a golf course, hotels and marinas next to the main port in the capital Colombo.
(Reuters)
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We should first have low cost electricity from coal has many units as required may be over 42 billion units per year
40 billion dollars and what of the local costs and in 15 years by then we might not be the living; except the perennial ravi who would find a way …..and he will keep sirisena to finance the next campaign and keep Ranil happy for a while and then provide him a gratuity in his retirement.
The economy is bad with ravi still in charge of the finance the economy will go into a nose dive. He longer can bank on arab remittances for they will be continue to be at war and refugees most likely double to about a 2 million or more. Syria will be a ghost state and probably block all aid and philantrophy for its resuruction that would block most of the aid promised! .
power and that will not be for long.
Sirisena to endorse this pie in the sky project is midless and boredrs on insanity! For there is serious shortage of drinking water made available about four days a week. Outer Colombo sits on cess pit and 70 percent of the rural population has no power! To satisfy these basic necessities it would cost40 billion and then relocation of the slums by way of paying compensation at least another billion.
Then bribes to various private contractors another few billions.
So the original cost of 40 billions would snow ball to at least double.
Thats way the money goes …..pop goes the weasel
Again, some bloggers have gone bonkers.
The USD 40 billion is total project cost of which GOSL and its agencies will provide only infrastructure.
The remaining comes from the investor community, both local and overseas.
Even the infrastructure can be tacked on to external (or internal) investors either as PPP (Public Private Partnership) or as BOO (Build Own Operate).
Zama’s 1980 economic theories which require the taxpayer to fund every penny of the USD 40bn is outdated.
The Minister, Hon Patali Champika, is a smart bloke. He definitely knows how the modern eWorld operates. That is why he was chosen for this work by RW.
As these projects obtained the environmental Authority assessment report especially the socioeconomic impact report