Port City becoming Chinese Colony baseless: Govt. Whip

Colombo Port City will be a generator of growth and direct foreign investment and allegations of it becoming a Chinese Colony were baseless and totally unfounded, Chief Government Whip- Highways Minister Johnston Fernando said.

Speaking to the media after attending a Sinhala and Hindu New Year event in Kurunegala, the Minister said the Port City was another special economic zone. “When the Katunayake Free Trade Zone was being set up under the Greater Colombo Economic Commission in 1978 under the leadership of Upali Wijewardene, the same fears were raised and some people expressed concerns. Now we have many Special Economic Zones (SEZ), including Export Processing Zones (EPZS), Industrial Parks (IPS) and Industrial Estates at present,we have 12 EPZS and two IPS throughout the country.these areas are considered vital for attracting investments and building industries and the fears raised when the Katunayake EPZ was set up were not raised when other similar zones were set up in Biyagama and Koggala.the Port City too is going to be an SEZ with tax exemptions and more advantages for the investors. Like in the case of Greater Colombo Economic Commission which later became the Board of Investment, a Special Commission is proposed for the control of the Port City.the government has submitted a Bill to Parliament for that purpose.taking bits and pieces out of that Bill, the Opposition and other misled parties are now expressing fears,” the Minister said. He said that an SEZ cannot become a colony of another country.the UNCTAD has identified SEZ as a ‘geographically delimited areas within which governments facilitated industrial activities through fiscal and regulatory incentives and infrastructure support’ and such zones were widely used in most developing and many developed economies.

“There are about 5,383 SEZS across 147 economies worldwide.“none of those countries have lost their territorial integrity of their SEZS and have become a threat to their sovereignty. We already have SEZS and India too has them. The fears being spread are baseless,” he said. Responding to a question by a journalist that MP Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe had raised concerns that the Port City would become a Chinese Colony through that Bill, the Minister stressed that nowhere in the Bill, did the government present a clause to imply that the Port City would be colonised by China. The

Minister said that MP Rajapakshe should have raised his concerns at the SLPP group meeting instead of holding press conferences. “In this regard he should have followed what has been taught in Buddhist literature that the in-door fire is not to be taken out of doors,” the Minister said. The Minister said that the land reclaimed from the sea near the Galle Face with the objective of making a Port City and not for the purpose of becoming an esplanade where people could go and fly kites.“the Port City is going to be serving the very same objective for which it has been set up. It has been always stated that this would be an SEZ and yet there were no concerns expressed during the past years while the land was being reclaimed for the purpose.