port city development<\/a>\u00a0required approval through a public referendum, the country’s parliament has passed a law installing a powerful economic commission to administer the complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe bill to support the China-backed\u00a0port city development\u00a0<\/strong>was approved by 149 votes in Sri Lanka\u2019s 225-member parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe development\u00a0is expected to include an integrated resort with casinos,\u00a0<\/strong>an entertainment zone, a conference centre, residential developments and a financial zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSri Lanka\u2019s Supreme Court<\/strong>\u00a0had previously suggested ways to amend the bill so it would comply with the national constitution. It said that some clauses had to be approved in a public referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Sri Lankan government hopes the project could help the country\u2019s recovery after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, opposition parties argue that the project could see Sri Lanka lose control of its territory to China<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDescribed as the largest single foreign direct investment in Sri Lankan history, the project has been developed by the state-owned Chinese engineering firm China Communications Construction Company (CCCC)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe development will be administered by Colombo Port City Economic Commission<\/strong>, which will also regulate gaming activities<\/strong>, determining how gaming activities will be operated<\/strong> and how casino operators will gain a licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The China-backed $1.4bn port city development in Colombo has received approval from Sri Lanka\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":18167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Sri Lanka's parliament has approved the China-backed $1.4bn Colombo Port City development, establishing a powerful economic commission to administer the complex. This project, which includes an integrated resort with casinos, is expected to aid the nation's economic recovery, with the commission also tasked with regulating gaming activities and operator licensing.","focusai_entities":"China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), Colombo Port City Economic Commission, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court, Sri Lanka's parliament","focusai_location":"Sri Lanka, Colombo, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (1.0), affiliate_publisher (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Port City Gaming Governance","query":"What specific governance frameworks and B2B\/B2C licensing structures will the Colombo Port City Economic Commission implement for integrated resort gaming verticals, and how will these align with international regulatory compliance standards?"},{"label":"Investment & GGR Projections","query":"What are the projected GGR contributions from the integrated resort's gaming operations, and how will this impact Sri Lanka's overall economic recovery and attract further foreign direct investment into the capital markets?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,158,16334],"tags":[23907],"class_list":["post-18166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-slider-home","category-south-asia-news","tag-land-based-casino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=18166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18185,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18166\/revisions\/18185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}