{"id":18034,"date":"2021-05-19T14:28:04","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T14:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=18034"},"modified":"2021-05-19T15:58:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T15:58:37","slug":"sri-lanka-port-city-development-needs-public-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/sri-lanka-port-city-development-needs-public-referendum","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka: port city development needs public referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sri Lanka&#8217;s Supreme Court has rules that the China-backed port city project in Colombo requires approval by a public referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka.- The China-backed <strong>$1.4bn<\/strong> <strong>port city development <\/strong>in Colombo faces a new challenge as <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/sri-lanka-cricket-match-fixing\">Sri Lanka<\/a>\u2019s Supreme Court rules that the project requires approval through a public referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to lawyers, the<strong> planned development, which is expected to include an entertainment zone with casinos, violates Sri Lanka&#8217;s constitution<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sri Lanka\u2019s Supreme Court<\/strong> has said that the project needs to receive two-thirds approval in parliament and public approval through a referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government is <strong>likely to get the parliamentary approval to develop the entertainment zone<\/strong> as it has achieved the two-thirds majority approve constitutional amendments in the past. However, the result of a public referendum may not be so certain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sri Lankan government hopes the project could help the country&#8217;s recovery after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, opposition parties argue that <strong>the project could see Sri Lanka lose control of its territory to China<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Described as the largest single foreign direct investment in Sri Lankan history, the project has been developed by the state-owned Chinese engineering firm <strong>China Communications Construction Company (CCCC)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The port city development is expected to <strong>include an Integrated Resort (IR)<\/strong>, a conference centre, residential developments and a financial zone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The development will be administered by\u00a0<strong>Colombo Port City Economic Commission<\/strong>, which will also<strong>\u00a0regulate gaming activities<\/strong>, <strong>determining how gaming activities will be operated<\/strong>\u00a0and how casino operators will gain a licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka&#8217;s Supreme Court has rules that the China-backed port city project in Colombo requires approval by a public referendum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":18048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16334],"tags":[23907],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18067,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions\/18067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}