Port City Project agreement further extended

17 September 2015 02:48 pm

The Cabinet on Wednesday gave the nod to extend the agreement for the controversial Colombo Port City Development Project for a further period of six months, Cabinet spokesman and Minister Rajitha Senaratne said.

“The period of the agreement signed between the Government and the relevant project company on September 16 last year expired on September 15 this year and hence a proposal had been made by Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga to extend the bilateral agreement for six more months from September 15, 2015 and it was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers,” Dr. Senaratne told the weekly cabinet news briefing.

The ‘Port City Project – Colombo’ was ‘Automatically Stopped’ in February as there were a lot unanswerable questions and shortcomings in the project such as the ‘Environment Impact Assessment’ report and the ‘Feasibility Study’ report despite many government and opposition members assuring its existence and non existence.

However, the government decided to re-visit and re-negotiate the project on the mutual consent of China and Sri Lanka, taking into consideration the close and cordial relationship between the two countries and also the size of the project. (Sandun A Jayasekera)