Sri Lanka’s Chinese-built port city stirs white elephant fears

Al Jazeera :
As far as many residents of Sri Lanka’s capital are concerned, the last thing their island nation needs in the midst of its worst-ever economic crisis is another beach – the island nation’s 1,340km coastline is blessed with some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
Yet, Port City Colombo (PCC), a vast new Chinese-built reclaimed commercial zone in Colombo, recently unveiled an artificial beach facing the Laccadive Sea.
 “The artificial beach is just greenwashing to attract international investors – sustainability is a convenient buzzword,” Priyangi Jayasinghe, a researcher at Colombo’s Munasinghe Institute for Development, told Al Jazeera.
Jayasinghe is one of many local critics who fear that PCC is another Beijing-funded white elephant in the mould of controversial projects. They include the loss-making Hambantota International Port, which was leased to Chinese state-owned China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited in 2017 as Sri Lanka struggled to repay its foreign creditors, which include China, India and Japan as well as private lenders.
Critics say PCC, which is being developed on 269 hectares (665 acres) of reclaimed land, is unsustainable and will have negligible benefits for the nation’s ailing economy.
“PCC will make a very minor impact on the Sri Lankan economy. It will be a separate tax-free dreamland when the rest of the country is facing higher taxes to deal with the economic crisis,” Jayasinghe said.
CHEC Port City Colombo, which is developing PCC, rejects the criticism and insists the ambitious development project, funded under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the tune of $1.4bn, will establish a world-class city for South Asia.