Chinese, Sri Lankan presidents inaugurate large construction project

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Sri Lankan counterpart, Mahinda Rajapaksa, on Wednesday attended the opening ceremony of a large construction project in Colombo.[Special coverage]

Speaking at the site of the Port City Project, Xi said he is delighted to see the thriving development of Sri Lanka and believes that with a unique geographic advantage, the country will realize rapid growth and keep moving towards its goals.

China is willing to further strengthen cooperation with Sri Lanka and provide assistance for the country within China's capacity, said the president.

Rajapaksa expressed his confidence that with the help of Chinese friends, Sri Lanka's "Mahinda Vision," which focuses on accelerating development, improving people's livelihood and building the country into a shipping and business hub in the Indian Ocean, will come true.

Xi also greeted the Chinese workers at the site and encouraged them to fulfill the task in time with high quality, so as to work with the Sri Lankan side to build the Colombo Port into an important hub of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The Colombo Port City Project is undertaken by China Harbor Engineering Company, which is expected to complete 276 hectares of land reclamation and infrastructure work by September 2017 and finish the rest of the construction by 2022.

The Colombo Port City, a major project in Sri Lanka's construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, will connect with Colombo's central business district, expand the city's space for development and boost investment and employment.

Also on Wednesday, Xi and Rajapaksa visited the Colombo International Container Terminals, a China-Sri Lanka joint venture and China's biggest investment project in Sri Lanka. The docks comprise four berths with the capacity of 2.4 million standard containers.

Xi left Sri Lanka for India later on Wednesday. Earlier in his ongoing four-country Asia trip, Xi visited Tajikistan and Maldives, and attended a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe.