China “commends” PM Rajapaksa’s defence of BRI during India visit
Posted on February 11th, 2020

Courtesy Ada Derana

China on Tuesday commended” Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s remarks that the island nation has received a lot of benefits” from Beijing’s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The BRI is an initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes.

During his recent visit to India, Rajapaksa said his country has received a lot of benefits from the BRI.

China, in the last few years, received over $8 billion funding for its infrastructure projects. Sri Lanka handed over its Hambantota port to China in 2017 as a debt swap.

When asked for a reaction to Rajapaksa’s remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, China commends the comments made by Prime Minister Rajapaksa”.

China and Sri Lanka share a strategic cooperative partnership based on sincere mutual assistance and ever-lasting friendship,” he said.

Based on Sri Lanka’s development needs, China offered loans to support its infrastructure building and other major domestic projects concerning people’s livelihood. These projects and loans have boosted Sri Lanka’s economic growth, created a large number of local jobs and contributed to the country’s sustainable development,” Geng said.

Those outcomes have been commended by the government and people of Sri Lanka. China stands ready to strengthen BRI cooperation with Sri Lanka to deliver more benefits to the two people,” he said.

Source: PTI

One Response to “China “commends” PM Rajapaksa’s defence of BRI during India visit”

  1. aloy Says:

    It is true that SL got military hardware to fight the tigers. But they sold the same to tigers as well. If they had any regard for us they should not have done it in the firs place. Late PM, SWRD spoke for 6 hours non stop in the UN giving reasons why China should be admitted to the UN and he had to pay with his life for that. And now we pay three or more times for every penny we get from them. Not only that we have given our territory for (Colombo Port City) and H’tota harbour to them for good for investing a couple of Billions. To my mind Rajapaksas have no love for the country to act the way they do ( vacillating all the time without a firm policy) and these foreigners behave like economic animals by ganging up with politicos bringing misery to citizens.

    How many students study in their country paying the dollars that our house maids bring from ME, in addition to return of the loans?. That is because we recognise their degrees. It has come to a stage that they have begun to oust the local contractors from non foreign funded jobs of private sector as well.
    Looking at the history, no sooner the Sri Vijaya empire fell they came running here though Straits of Malacca and took away our Kotte king and his kith and kin whose descendants still live there. Wait until the BRI is fully operational.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

 

 


Copyright © 2024 LankaWeb.com. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Wordpress