{"id":80482,"date":"2021-02-05T10:45:02","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T05:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=80482"},"modified":"2021-02-06T10:43:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T05:13:15","slug":"sri-lanka-writes-off-strategic-colombo-port-deal-with-india-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/sri-lanka-writes-off-strategic-colombo-port-deal-with-india-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Writes Off Strategic Colombo Port Deal With India &#038; Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/colombo-port-india-sri-lanka-7173610\/\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS 2<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong> Sri Lanka\u2019s has pulled out of a 2019 Colombo Port deal with India and Japan. The agreement was for developing the strategic East Container Terminal (ECT) at the Colombo Port.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>India and Sri Lanka signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) for cooperation on economic projects in 2019. <strong>A container terminal at the Colombo Port was one of the projects under MoU<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>However, Sri Lanka has pulled out from the deal after opposition from trade unions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the agreement?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The ECT deal was important as between <strong>60 and 70 percent of transshipment that takes place through it is India-linked.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>As per the agreement, India and Japan would have 49 percent ownership of the ECT. Whereas <strong>Sri Lanka would have a 51% stake.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>A 40-year loan at an interest rate of 0.1% from Japan was expected to fund the development of the ECT.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What went wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>India-Sri Lanka relations are cordial in general. But India&#8217;s involvement in the civil wars of Sri Lanka still affects India&#8217;s interest there.<\/li>\n<li>Colombo Port Trade Union has strongly opposed the 49% stake of India and Japan. They are demanding 100% ownership of Sri Lanka of the ports,<\/li>\n<li>Big projects by India have always faced opposition in Sri Lanka. Due to this, India brought Japan in at least two of the projects listed in the MoU.<\/li>\n<li><strong>But the <\/strong><strong>relationship between Japan and Sri Lanka has also changed over the years,<\/strong> because of Colombo\u2019s closeness to China. Therefore, including Japan in the project didn\u2019t prove to be fruitful.<\/li>\n<li>The protests ended after the announcement of the Sri Lanka government. Now, the ECT would be developed and operated as a \u201cwholly-owned container terminal of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>What happens now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>India has asked <strong>Colombo not to take a unilateral decision on an existing tripartite agreement.<\/strong> Japan has called the <strong>decision regrettable.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As a compensation offer, Sri Lanka has given a <strong>proposal to India and Japan for the development of the west terminal in partnership.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sri Lanka assures that the West terminal is <strong>commercially better than the east terminal<\/strong>. The developers could hold up to <strong>85 percent stake instead of 49 percent stake<\/strong> in the West terminal.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The unions agreed to this proposal <\/strong>to invite India and Japan to participate in the development and operation of the west terminal.<\/li>\n<li>However, India has not yet responded to the offer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: click here Syllabus: GS 2 Synopsis: Sri Lanka\u2019s has pulled out of a 2019 Colombo Port deal with India and Japan. The agreement was for developing the strategic East Container Terminal (ECT) at the Colombo Port. Introduction India and Sri Lanka signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) for cooperation on economic projects in 2019. A&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/sri-lanka-writes-off-strategic-colombo-port-deal-with-india-japan\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sri Lanka Writes Off Strategic Colombo Port Deal With India &#038; Japan<\/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":[1230,9],"tags":[1333,1457],"class_list":["post-80482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-ir_0","tag-ir_02","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700791510,"cached_date":1704651568},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80482","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=80482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}