Japan regrets Sri Lanka's scrapping of port terminal deal

Colombo (News 1st); Japan has expressed "regret" after Sri Lanka scrapped the 2019 deal with New Delhi and Tokyo for the development of Colombo port's East Container Terminal.

According to The Hindu, the Japanese envoy to Colombo Akira Sugiyama met with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena on Wednesday (03), to express regret over the matter. In Delhi, an official of the Japanese Embassy said the Japanese government was “looking into the details” of the announcement made by Mahinda Rajapaksa after a Cabinet meeting on Monday. Japan’s contribution to Sri Lanka is also considerable, with loans of about 1.1 trillion yen and grants and technical cooperation of about 300 billion yen thus far, and officials said they had not expected the Sri Lankan decision, reported The Hindu. Nearly 70% of the transshipment business through ECT is linked to India, the report added. The Hindu quoted former Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Austin Fernando as saying that India had even been offered the WCT in 2018 as well and had “refused”.