|
|
 |
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Disclaimer: The comments contained within this website are personal reflection only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LankaWeb. LankaWeb.com offers the contents of this website without charge, but does not necessarily endorse the views and opinions expressed within. Neither the LankaWeb nor the individual authors of any material on this Web site accept responsibility for any loss or damage, however caused (including through negligence), which you may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of your use of or reliance on information contained on or accessed through this Web site.
All views and opinions presented in this article are solely those of the surfer and do not necessarily represent those of LankaWeb.com.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, May 15th, 2016.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Copyright © 2024 LankaWeb.com. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Wordpress
May 15th, 2016 at 10:30 pm
NO ONE can EXPLAIN the ECONOMIC MESS Sri Lanka has fallen into NOW, and IDENTIFY the CORRUPT POLITICIANS responsible for this BUNGLING better than Wimal Weerawansa! May the Noble TRiple Gem Bless & Protect this man …. for he FIGHTS for the Patriots of Lanka!
May 15th, 2016 at 10:36 pm
Yamapalana Govt eating MORE HUMBLE PIE … Made in China! Congenital bungling IDIOTS!
………………………….
Stop complaining, Sri Lanka needs huge investment and only China can help
Sun, May 15, 2016, 06:41 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena visited India for the second time since his election in January 2015. He met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the sixth time (including meetings at international summits) in 16 months, since becoming president.
After coming to power, he had signaled his desire to move away from his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa’s overt pro-China approach, and to be more sensitive to India’s concerns of a growing Chinese footprint in the island nation.
In New Delhi and Ujjain over the weekend, President Sirisena made it a point to announce that India was the first country he visited as the chief executive. What he did not say was that his view of China had changed since, and that Beijing would now play a greater role in Sri Lanka’s economic development.
Since his last visit to India in February 2015, the economic crisis staring Colombo has forced Sirisena to take a pragmatic view of China. In the last three months, both he and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have visited China separately and sought economic help. The ability of Beijing to quickly provide millions of dollars and stitch up contracts for projects has also made other South Asian nations such as Maldives and Bangladesh to roll out a red carpet to China, much to India’s discomfiture.
Today, Sri Lanka’s economy needs urgent help. Next month, the IMF Board in Washington will meet to put its stamp on a $1.5 billion bailout package to help Colombo avoid a balance of payments crisis. Reuters reported that foreign exchange reserves fell by a third from late 2014 to $6.2 billion in March-end. One-third of government revenues go into interest payments. General government debt was around 76 percent of GDP in 2015, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
Sri Lanka owes China $8 billion. At the end of a three-decade civil war in 2009, when the western world sought explanations on its human rights record in dealing with Tamil Tigers who had waged an armed struggle for a separate state of Eelam, it was China that stepped in to help Sri Lanka, economically and militarily.
India, on the other hand, could not match China’s economic muscle, and given the sensitivity of the Indian Tamil political parties in helping Colombo, New Delhi could only help with rehabilitation of displaced Sri Lankan Tamils in the North and East of the country.
According to an official press release, issued after his second visit to India on Saturday, President Sirisena and PM Modi discussed the issue of fishermen from the two countries arrested for fishing in the other country’s territorial waters, where borders cannot be physically marked.
In the last few months, India announced three water projects in the country, apart from helping build over 50,000 housing units for Tamils in that country.
According to the Indian embassy website in Sri Lanka, “a number of new investments from Indian companies are in the pipeline or under implementation. Notable among them are proposals of Shree Renuka Sugars to set up a sugar refining plant at Hambantota Port ($220 million), South City Projects, Kolkata for real estate development in Colombo ($400 million), Tata Housing Development project along with the Urban Development Authority of Sri Lanka ($430 million), ‘Colombo One’ project of ITC Ltd. (it has committed an investment of $300 million, augmenting the earlier committed $140 million). Dabur has already set up a fruit juice manufacturing plant ($17 million) in May 2013.”
China offered equity in the Lankan public sector, whereas Sri Lanka has now offered equity to Chinese firms in infrastructure projects, in return for waiving some of the billions of dollars of debt. The Chinese government has been offered stake in infrastructure projects and in public sector utilities. Colombo has even received a Chinese offer of 500 million yuan as a “gesture of friendship”, local newspapers reported after the April visit by their prime minister to Beijing.
Simply put, China would have a bigger stake economically and strategically in Sri Lanka’s future. This is not to say that India will cease to be an important player. After all, the geographical position of Sri Lanka does not allow any government in Colombo to get adventurous when it comes to dealing with India. But widening Chinese footprint in South Asia, with its enormous economic strength in what is essentially India’s neighbourhood, is reason enough to cause concern in New Delhi about where its foreign policy headed.
Read More:: FP (Source)