Dr Sarath Obeysekera

• Sunk Costs and Lost Vision: Rethinking Sri Lanka’s Megaproject Strategy”
• When Infrastructure Outruns Strategy: Lessons from Port City and Hambantota

1. Stop thinking like a builder — start thinking like a dealmaker

Sri Lanka’s mistake has been engineering-led development without parallel commercial strategy. What’s missing is aggressive anchor investor targeting.

• For Port City: attract regional HQs, fintech firms, family offices, arbitration centers. Compete with Dubai and Singapore—not Galle Face restaurants.
• Offer time-bound, non-bureaucratic incentives (fast-track visas, tax certainty, dollar accounts).

Without 5–10 global anchor tenants, the skyline will remain empty.

2. Re-negotiate utilization—not ownership

The narrative that Sri Lanka lost” Hambantota Port is politically attractive but economically shallow. The real issue is underutilization.

• Position Hambantota as a specialized industrial-port hub:
  • Vehicle transshipment (already some success)
  • LNG / energy hub
  • Ship repair & bunkering (competing with Fujairah)
• Push for revenue-sharing upgrades tied to throughput, not fixed lease optics.

If ships don’t come, ownership debates are meaningless.

3. Link both projects into a single economic corridor

Right now, they operate as isolated assets. That’s a strategic error.

• Create a Colombo–Hambantota logistics & industrial corridor
• High-speed freight, bonded zones, and unified customs
• Port City = finance & services
• Hambantota = industry & logistics

This is how China itself scaled its coastal zones—integration, not fragmentation.

4. Bring in third-country players (balance the China factor)

Overdependence creates both political and commercial hesitation.

• Invite India, Japan, Middle East funds into specific verticals
• Example:
  • India → energy, logistics
  • Japan → industrial zones
  • Gulf → real estate, finance

This reduces geopolitical risk perception, which is currently scaring off Western investors.

5. Radical regulatory clarity (this is the real bottleneck)

Investors are not avoiding Sri Lanka because of lack of land—they avoid policy unpredictability.

For Colombo Port City:

• Guarantee independent commercial law framework
• No retrospective tax changes
• Full capital repatriation

Without this, even free land won’t attract serious capital.

6. Monetize what already exists (quick wins)

Instead of waiting for mega investors:

• Turn idle land into temporary revenue generators
  • Events, exhibitions, F1-style circuits, cruise tourism
• Aggressively market as a regional MICE hub (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions)

Cash flow—even small—is better than prestige emptiness.

7. Professionalize project governance

These projects cannot be run like ministries.

• Independent, performance-based boards
• Global talent in management
• KPIs tied to occupancy, throughput, and revenue—not ribbon-cutting

Hard truth

Sri Lanka’s issue is not that China built these projects. It’s that Sri Lanka did not build the ecosystem around them.

Infrastructure without policy, marketing, and investor confidence is like building a harbor with no ships.

Regards

Dr Sarath Obeysekera