{"id":33205,"date":"2018-10-30T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33205"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:20:11","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:50:11","slug":"hambantota-augury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/hambantota-augury\/","title":{"rendered":"Hambantota augury\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/editorials\/hambantota-augury-sri-lanka-china-port-4987382\/\"><strong>Hambantota augury<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Seven years after the China-built Hambantota Port was inaugurated with great fanfare by the then president of Sri Lanka, MahindaRajapaksa, as a symbol of his country\u2019s rising geopolitical aspirations in Asia, the Sri Lanka government has taken the project to its logical and inevitable, if not the aspirational, conclusion<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Augury<\/u><\/strong>: a sign of what will happen in the future<\/p>\n<p><strong>What has happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka has handed the Hambantota port over to a state-run Chinese company, China Merchants Port Holdings<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The decision also includes handing over a large tract of land close to the port to Chinese companies for a special economic zone<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How the port was financed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finances for the port<\/strong>: China\u2019s Exim Bank loaned 85 per cent of the finances for the $ 1.5 billion port, at an interest of 6.5 per cent. The balance was put up by the Sri Lankan government, which borrowed heavily from other sources for it<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The first phase, which Rajapaksa inaugurated in 2010, one year after winning the war against the LTTE, comprised four berths and buildings and cost about $ 650 million. The repayment amounted to $ 60 million annually<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13434 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.forumias.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/artha.jpg?resize=724%2C426\" alt=\"\" width=\"724\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/artha.jpg?w=724&amp;ssl=1 724w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/artha.jpg?resize=150%2C88&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/artha.jpg?resize=300%2C177&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Reason behind current decision<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The port, which began operations in November 2011, had to start making money by 2013, in order for Sri Lanka to be able to repay the loan. However, by 2016-end, the government estimated its cumulative losses at $ 3 billion<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lesson to be learnt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Author states that, for the region, though, Hambantota should be a lesson on big ticket infrastructure projects with loans from their patron countries at market rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hambantota augury\u00a0 Context Seven years after the China-built Hambantota Port was inaugurated with great fanfare by the then president of Sri Lanka, MahindaRajapaksa, as a symbol of his country\u2019s rising geopolitical aspirations in Asia, the Sri Lanka government has taken the project to its logical and inevitable, if not the aspirational, conclusion Augury: a sign&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/hambantota-augury\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hambantota augury\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704761661},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}