Posted on April 20th, 2021
Courtesy Nikkei Asia
Yearlong talks yield $500m loan thought to carry ‘geopolitical conditions’
Signs advertise Colombo Port City: The development is said to give Beijing sweeping powers to oversee projects for the financial hub worth $1.4 billion. (Photo by Yuji Kuronuma)MUNZA MUSHTAQ, Contributing WriterApril 20, 2021 16:42 JST
COLOMBO China appears to be tightening its strategic grip on Sri Lanka, wooing the debt-ridden South Asian nation with a fresh $500 million loan as Colombo wrestles with a deepening economic crisis.
In March, Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves dropped to $4.05 billion, their lowest in over a decade, with tourism plummeting following the onset of COVID-19. Public coffers also took a massive hit as export earnings and foreign remittances dropped drastically due to the pandemic. The dwindling foreign reserves also caused the currency to plunge to 203 Sri Lankan rupees to the dollar, a record low.
Even after H tota sellout, govt didn t take remedial measures – Arjuna – The Island
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(Dr) Jayampathy Wickramaratne, President’s Counsel
(Lanka-e-News -18.April.2021, 10.45PM) The Colombo Port Economic Commission Bill was presented in Parliament on 08 April 2021, while the country was getting ready to celebrate the traditional New Year. With the intervening weekend and three public holidays, citizens had just two working days to retain lawyers, many of whom were on vacation, and file applications challenging the constitutionality of the Bill in the Supreme Court within the one-week period stipulated in the Constitution. One wonders whether the timing was deliberate.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka said in a statement that it was extremely concerned about the limited time given for scrutiny and discussion of this important Bill, as well as the timing of placing the Bill on the Order Paper of Parliament, which was after the suspension of sittings of the Supreme Court, a time when many members of the legal profession are unavailable. Because the period of one week w