President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government wants to undo the previous regime’s move to lease the southern port of Hambantota to a Chinese venture, citing national interest.
Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s govt trapped in Chinese debt lock changed the terms of the earlier loan and leased the controversial Port of Hambantota to China Merchants Port Holdings Co. in return for $1.1 billion. That helped ease the Chinese part of the debt burden raised to build the port, Wickremesinghe said in an interview in 2018.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s economic advisor Ajit Nivaard Cabraal, said in an interview at his home in a Colombo suburb. “The ideal situation would be to go back to the status quo. We pay back the loan in due course in the way that we had originally agreed without any disturbance at all.”
Hambantota port plays a crucial part in China’s ambitious belt and road initiative bridging Myanmar to Kenya.
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