LRT Project : Sri Lanka keen but Japan not

Colombo, May 06 (Daily Mirror)- Uncertainty looms over the relaunch of the Japan -financed light rail project (LRT) even after the country’s debt restructuring process is concluded since Japan has decided not to discuss it , according to an official of the Japanese government.

The Gotabaya Rajapaksa government scrapped the $1.5 billion Japanese-funded light rail project for Colombo citing the high cost .

The project, meant to ease congestion in the city, was being financed through a $1.4 billion soft loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA).

However , the government led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe decided to resume work on the project and attempted to convince the Japanese government to implement it again .

According to Kaneko Mariko , the deputy press secretary of the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry, who met a select group of journalists, the project was cancelled even before Sri Lanka was declared bankrupt . She was accompanying Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa who was in Colombo and held bilateral talks on Saturday.

Ms. Mariko said Sri Lanka sought to resume work but Japan decided not to discuss it at this juncture . She said the Japanese assistance for any such LRT project would depend Sri Lanka’s debt sustainability and the scale of it . Also , she said it should be a fresh project on new terms .

However, she said all the other projects stalled due to the economic crisis would resume upon the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on debt restructuring with the creditor nations . These projects include the expansion of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) . Japan chairs the official creditors’ committee on Sri Lanka.

During talks , Japan stressed the need for swift conclusion of the debt restructuring process and the conduct of it in a transparent, comparable manner.