{"id":64941,"date":"2017-04-05T14:34:45","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T21:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=64941"},"modified":"2017-04-05T14:34:45","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T21:34:45","slug":"sri-lanka-seeks-to-reduce-chinas-stake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/04\/05\/sri-lanka-seeks-to-reduce-chinas-stake\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka seeks to reduce China\u2019s stake"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"share-tools\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0Courtesy portstrategy.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"short-description\"><strong>Sri Lanka\u2019s government is seeking to reduce China Merchant Port Holdings\u2019 stake in a strategic port project by up to a quarter as part of a renegotiation aimed at addressing public and political opposition to the deal, Reuters has reported.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">China Merchants Port Holdings had been expected to pay $1.12bn for a 99-year lease on an 80% stake in Sri Lanka\u2019s southern Hambantota port, after signing an agreement in December. However, the deal has been delayed by legal and political obstacles on the development of a nearby 15,000-acre industrial zone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">In a draft agreement seen by <em>Reuters<\/em>, the Chinese firm would still hold a majority in the port, but would agree to divest up to a 20 per cent stake to a Sri Lankan company after ten years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The Chinese firm has been informed of the stake reduction, but is yet to make a public announcement about the new agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Meanwhile, Ranga Kalansooriya, head of the government\u2019s information department, told <em>Reuters<\/em>: There were some concerns about ownership. We were able to negotiate with the Chinese company successfully. The Chinese firm said they want the controlling share, even if it was 51 percent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; See more at: http:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/news101\/world\/asia\/sri-lanka-seeks-to-reduce-chinas-stake#sthash.QTiMepiG.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Courtesy portstrategy.com Sri Lanka\u2019s government is seeking to reduce China Merchant Port Holdings\u2019 stake in a strategic port project by up to a quarter as part of a renegotiation aimed at addressing public and political opposition to the deal, Reuters has reported. China Merchants Port Holdings had been expected to pay $1.12bn for a 99-year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64941","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=64941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}