{"id":73327,"date":"2018-01-02T13:53:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T20:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=73327"},"modified":"2018-01-02T13:54:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T20:54:06","slug":"china-boosts-investment-in-sri-lankan-mega-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/01\/02\/china-boosts-investment-in-sri-lankan-mega-project\/","title":{"rendered":"China boosts investment in Sri Lankan mega-project"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy MAIL ON LINE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Pumps dredge sand to reclaim land at the site of a Chinese-funded $1.4 billion reclamation project in Colombo, Sri Lanka on December 5, 2017, a deal that preceded a new $1 billion investment in three 60-storey buildings near the country&#8217;s main port<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>China will invest $1 billion in the construction of three 60-storey buildings at a mega-project near Sri Lanka&#8217;s main port, Colombo said Tuesday, as Beijing aims to boost its influence in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-f0e228ee763b316e\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1\/2018\/01\/02\/17\/wire-2003196-1514914375-867_634x379.jpg\" alt=\"Pumps dredge sand to reclaim land at the site of a Chinese-funded $1.4 billion reclamation project in Colombo, Sri Lanka on December 5, 2017, a deal that preceded a new $1 billion investment in three 60-storey buildings near the country's main port\" width=\"634\" height=\"379\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The deal follows an earlier Chinese investment of $1.4 billion to carry out reclamation work for the wider Colombo International Financial City development, strategically located next to Sri Lanka&#8217;s harbour, the only deep sea container port in the region.<\/p>\n<p>The countries hope the project, initiated by former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse, will create a financial centre in the Indian Ocean comparable with those in Singapore and Europe, drawing billions in foreign investment and thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lankan officials said 60 percent of the 269 hectare (672 acre) reclamation, due to finish next year complete with yacht marina, had already been completed.<\/p>\n<p>No completion date was given for the buildings, the first for the development.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;China Harbour (company) will put in $1 billion to build three buildings,&#8221; Sri Lanka&#8217;s Urban Development Minister Champika Ranawaka told reporters in the capital.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These three 60-storey buildings will be able to attract more foreign companies into Sri Lanka.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The controversial project was formally launched after a visit to Colombo by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 but work was suspended by the new administration, which came to power in January the following year.<\/p>\n<p>It resumed after the state-owned Ch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy MAIL ON LINE Pumps dredge sand to reclaim land at the site of a Chinese-funded $1.4 billion reclamation project in Colombo, Sri Lanka on December 5, 2017, a deal that preceded a new $1 billion investment in three 60-storey buildings near the country&#8217;s main port China will invest $1 billion in the construction of [&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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73327","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=73327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}