NEW DELHI: Earlier this week, the Sri Lankan Cabinet gave its approval to develop the West Container Terminal of Colombo Port jointly with India and Japan under a public-private partnership. This came after both India and Japan expressed their displeasure over the Sri Lankan government going back on a 2019 trilateral deal (signed during the earlier government) to jointly develop the East Container Terminal. “The President (Gotabaya Rajapaksa) was compelled to not give the ECT to a foreign entity because of pressure from trade unions. He had to give in to people’s power,” Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Admiral (Retd) Jayanath Colombage told StratNews Global. But to compensate for the issues that came up with the ECT, he offered the West Container Terminal which is a much better deal, Colombage told Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale in an exclusive interview. Listen in for more.
