{"id":99138,"date":"2020-02-20T16:19:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T23:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99138"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:19:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T23:19:16","slug":"japan-firm-lands-massive-sri-lanka-airport-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/20\/japan-firm-lands-massive-sri-lanka-airport-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan firm lands massive Sri Lanka airport contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Borneo Bulletin<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>February 21, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>COLOMBO (AFP) \u2013 A Japanese firm was chosen by Colombo yesterday to build a new USD570 million terminal for Sri Lanka\u2019s main airport, as Tokyo re-emerges as a key infrastructure backer amid a raft of Chinese projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Cabinet announced the Taisei Corporation was picked to develop the Japanese-funded project, with the new terminal expected to double the capacity at Bandaranaike International airport to around 20 million passengers a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision follows the financing of Colombo\u2019s planned USD1.5-billion light rail system last year by Japan\u2019s overseas development agency \u2013 the biggest single foreign investment in the island nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was recently appointed prime minister, Sri Lanka secured almost USD7 billion in loans from China, dislodging Japan as the island\u2019s main infrastructure funder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But a second international airport funded and built by China in Sri Lanka\u2019s south is a white elephant, with no airline using it for scheduled flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unable to service its loans, Colombo leased a Chinese-built deep-sea port at Hambantota to a Beijing company for USD1.12 billion in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Borneo Bulletin February 21, 2020 COLOMBO (AFP) \u2013 A Japanese firm was chosen by Colombo yesterday to build a new USD570 million terminal for Sri Lanka\u2019s main airport, as Tokyo re-emerges as a key infrastructure backer amid a raft of Chinese projects. The Cabinet announced the Taisei Corporation was picked to develop the Japanese-funded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99138","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=99138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}