Sri Lanka has already sold China a port that gets almost no ships. The island nation now wants India to take control of an airport with no scheduled flights.<\/p>\n
The nation first tried to offer China the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in the southern district of Hambantota, but is now in talks with India, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Sri Lanka\u2019s parliament on Thursday. The move follows the $1.1 billion sale of the loss-making port in Hambantota to state-owned China Merchants Group.<\/p>\n
The efforts are part of Sri Lanka\u2019s attempt to salvage loss-making projects built under a previous administration criticized for its close ties with China. Hambantota\u2019s port was a \u201cwhite elephant\u201d that accumulated nearly $300 million in losses since 2011, Wickremesinghe told parliament. But the port\u2019s sale to China was a \u201cgreat victory\u201d for Sri Lanka, he said, and getting Indian involved in the airport could help revive that asset too, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust like the port without ships, there is also an airport without planes in Mattala,\u201d Wickremesinghe told lawmakers. \u201cWe spoke first to the Chinese about the Mattala airport, but we did not get a favourable response. So we are in discussions with India. In the future, I believe Mattala will also be an airport free of debt that will attract flights.\u201d<\/p>\n
India and Sri Lanka held talks this week to discuss a joint venture agreement for the airport with Indian officials, the country\u2019s deputy transport minister Ashok Abeysinghe told parliament this week, according to Sri Lanka\u2019s EconomyNext news service.<\/p>\n
The airport deal could take the shape of a 40-year joint venture in which India takes a 70 percent stake in Mattala airport, according to the Daily FT, a daily financial newspaper in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
Spokesmen for India\u2019s civil aviation and foreign ministries could not be reached, while spokesman JB Singh of the Airports Authority of India said he could not comment.<\/p>\n
Both projects were built in an era when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was taking billions of dollars in Chinese loans to build infrastructure projects in Hambantota, where his constituency is located. By the time Rajapaksa was ousted from power in 2015, more than 90 percent of Sri Lanka\u2019s total government revenue was going toward debt payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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