Sri Lankan opposition party want to scrap Colombo’s port city

Sri Lanka’ opposition party intend to scrap an impending $1.5bn port project, agreed between China Communications Construction (CCC) and the current government, if it wins the presidential election next month.

Former prime minister and opposition leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, denounced the plans to turn the nation’s capital, Colombo, into a port city, as a haphazard reclamation” of land with no regard for environmental damage.

Claiming that the 233 ha development, where construction begun in September, would destroy the West coast of Sri Lanka, he said: “I will stop it. We have to protect our coastal area. If the port city is built, we will lose the coastal area.”