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President boosts ties with Sri Lanka
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PRESIDENT Xi Jinping visited Sri Lanka yesterday to forge closer ties and help launch a US$1.4 billion port city project funded by the Chinese government.
On his arrival at the Bandaranaike International Airport, Xi said he was looking forward to discussing further cooperation and drawing a blueprint for bilateral ties with Sri Lankan leaders.
Calling the two countries “good brothers sharing weal and woe, good partners seeking common development and good friends with close relationship,” the president said the China-Sri Lanka strategic cooperative partnership was at a new starting point with broad development opportunities.
“I hope the visit will promote the profound friendship between the two peoples and that the ship of China-Sri Lanka friendship will brave the wind and waves along the magnificent 21st century maritime silk road,” Xi said.
Xi is the first Chinese leader to visit Sri Lanka in 28 years. During his visit, the two countries are expected to sign up to 20 agreements on trade and aid.
Xi is visiting countries in South Asia this week to seek closer relations and support for his vision of a modern “maritime silk road” — a sea route connecting China with Europe. On Monday, he secured backing from the nearby archipelago nation of the Maldives.
The Chinese president was to help launch Colombo Port City, being constructed on an artificial island off Colombo with US$1.4 billion in Chinese loans, according to the builder, China Communications Construction Co Ltd.
The company said the port city will be a “hub on the marine silk road of Asia and position itself as the preferred global tourism destination in Asia.”
Earlier Chinese investment in the port of Hambantota led many to speculate that Sri Lanka is meant to be a key stop along the proposed maritime silk road.
Xi was also to launch the final phase of a Chinese-funded 900-megawatt coal power plant which is costing more than US$1.3 billion.
China has become Sri Lanka’s largest lender in recent years, providing more than US$6 billion up to the end of September last year for port facilities, highways and a new international airport.
It has also become Sri Lanka’s second largest trade partner and second largest source of imports. In 2013, bilateral trade reached US$3.62 billion.
China also supplied weapons to the government during Sri Lanka’s 27-year civil war that ended in 2009 with the defeat of Tamil separatists.
“China firmly supports Sri Lanka in choosing a development path suited to its national conditions and resolutely opposes any move by any country to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs under any excuse,” Xi said in an article published in Sri Lanka’s state-run Daily News yesterday.
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