Colombo-Katunayake highway still on

Chinese investors are yet again evaluating the possibility of reviving the construction of the Colombo-Katunayake Express way (CKE), connecting the national airport in Katunayake to the city, according to a top Road Development Authority (RDA) official.
“Presently Chinese investors, who were awarded the contract originally, but were unable to obtain bank loans to get the project going, have revisited the country in the hope of starting the project again,” M.B.S. Fernando, Chairman RDA told The Sunday Times FT.

His comments came in the backdrop of another, almost similar (Colombo-Katunayake) highway proposed by the Bank of Ceylon (and reported in this newspaper on January 20) which has attracted Indian, Malaysian and some European contractors.

Fernando said he was unaware of the new project. He explained that in China, the system is a company needs to have a contract for a certain project in order to obtain funding for that project. “This contract needs to be presented to the bank as an offer document in order to obtain the loan. The Chinese party was unable to get the required US$ 200 million from the Chinese government initially, but now they are doing some studies on the CKE,” Fernando added.

He said their studies revolve around trying to reduce the cost of the CKE. “They may reduce interchanges and may reduce the width of the road in order to decrease the costing to a ‘bearable amount’, but they have not officially communicated anything to us as yet,” he said.

He said that the government received a second proposal about one year ago (before the Chinese party returned) from a French contractor called ‘Vinci Construction’. “They are a large, reputed construction firm in France, who gave a proposed for US$120 million, requesting the government to provide the balance money. But with our expenses of Rs.55 billion on road development for a year, this was not possible,” he added.