{"id":141161,"date":"2024-03-27T16:49:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T23:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=141161"},"modified":"2024-03-27T16:49:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T23:49:20","slug":"sri-lanka-pm-says-china-to-develop-strategic-hambantota-port-colombo-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/03\/27\/sri-lanka-pm-says-china-to-develop-strategic-hambantota-port-colombo-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka PM says China to develop strategic Hambantota port, Colombo airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The South China Morning Post<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said Premier Li Qiang had promised Beijing would also help the South Asian nation\u2019s debt restructuring process continuously<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>New Delhi and Washington are concerned that a Chinese foothold at Hambantota could boost its naval advantage in the Indian Ocean<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/652x446\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2024\/03\/27\/fc909068-879c-41e0-8c51-f8214ebba1f1_9ca323f4.jpg?itok=EAY-vmSx&amp;v=1711537935\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. Photo: AFP<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/sri-lanka?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\">Sri Lanka<\/a>\u2019s prime minister said on Wednesday that China has pledged to develop the island nation\u2019s strategic deep seaport and the capital\u2019s airport after talks with his counterpart in Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said China \u2013 the island\u2019s biggest bilateral creditor \u2013 would assist\u201d Sri Lanka\u2019s restructuring of external debt, a key condition to maintaining a US$2.9 billion IMF bailout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The South China Morning Post The Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. Photo: AFP Sri Lanka\u2019s prime minister said on Wednesday that China has pledged to develop the island nation\u2019s strategic deep seaport and the capital\u2019s airport after talks with his counterpart in Beijing. Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said China \u2013 the island\u2019s biggest bilateral [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}