Port City open for business after declaration as part of Colombo district
The Colombo Port City is now open for business from last Saturday after Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa along with the Chinese Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan declared open 269 hectares of land reclaimed from the sea for the project as part of the Colombo district.
This was stated by Susil Premajayantha, State Minister for International Cooperation when he addressed the occasion of signing two MOUs, one between the Mianyang Association of Commerce, China (MAC) and Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Industries (COSMI) Sri Lanka and the other between Mianyang Enterprise Union of Import and Export, China and COSMI at Colombo Hilton Hotel this week.
For this occasion a 15 member strong Chinese delegation arrived in Sri Lanka and at this forum they had bilateral trade discussions between the delegates and their Sri Lankan counterparts.
Mr. Premajayantha told the Business Times on the sidelines of the event that tax benefits introduced by the present government would become incentives for traders and investors. Neutrality is to be ensured in maintaining good relations with other countries but the government would not tolerate interference in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka by outsiders, he cautioned .
At the event he said that the country’s tourism and trade was affected due to the April 21 Easter Sunday incident, but said that the country has now recovered from this tragedy and Sri Lanka is now safe for investors and business for the locals and the international community.
The MOUs would increase opportunities of mutual interest between China and Sri Lanka and he assured that the government is committed to improve bilateral relations of friendly countries and improve the trade relations among these countries.
Nawaz Rajabdeen is the founder President of COSMI and Macky Hashim is its Chairman.
Mr. Rajabdeen told this newspaper that around 30 per cent of SME industries are malfunctioning due to obsolete machinery which leads to market substandard products unable to compete in the local and global markets as these machines are 15 to 20 years old.
He said that there are about 2 million such industries and he suggested that if these industries could be empowered they would be able to provide employment to the tune of one million. This cooperation would be eventually expanded to other countries too, to obtain support for their new venture, he remarked.
Under the new government this is the first trade delegation to arrive in Sri Lanka and is from the most technological and dynamic hub of China’s One Belt One Road initiative facilitated by COSMI.
Zhang Zhang Zhongcheng, Chairman MAC and John Luo, Chairman, Mianyang Enterprise Union for Import and Export elaborated their part of involvement in this exercise.