<span style="color: #222222;">In an exclusive interview with our special correspondent, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister MUM Ali Sabry has said that in the case of Western Container Terminal (WCT) of Colombo port, the Indian Government had no role as far as deciding the investor was concerned and it was a matter internal to Sri Lanka. He elaborated the detailed timelines in the development of the WCT where Sri Lanka, India and Japan were involved in a trilateral arrangement initially. The minister said that in early 2021, Sri Lanka had decided to go ahead with the development on its own, after which Adani group had expressed interest in development of ports in Sri Lanka. He said that Sri Lankan government then had negotiated the necessary agreement with Adani group.<br />''<br />'' Full transcript of the interview is shared below<br />'' <br />'' Q. You are back from India after participating in the Raisina Dialogue. Overall, how were your engagements during the visit ' both the Dialogue as well as other meetings?<br />'' <br />'' Foreign Minister: Thank you very much for talking to me. It was a good visit as far as Sri Lanka is concerned we had good engagements at Raisina Dialogue. The dialogue was well organised. Diverse views were expressed. It helped us to expand our paradigms and looking at new opportunities. it gave a clear view of where India is proceeding and opportunities for India, the world and the region. So we are thankful for that. Bilateral we had discussions and debates as to how we should proceed.<br />'' <br />'' Q. This was your second bilateral meeting with External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar in a span of less than two months. What were the central areas of discussion in this meeting?<br />'' <br />'' Foreign Minister: I was pleased to meet Dr Jaishankar once again. He's a great supporter of Sri Lanka's recovery, along with Madam Seetharaman, with the blessings of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. The discussions centred primarily around how India could help Sri Lanka's recovery at the IMF level, debt restructuring level, in terms of supporting through investment, and more tourists to the country. We also discussed bilateral relationship and how to enhance it, how to integrate them and how to follow that up. So in that sense, I think we had a very good discussion as to how we operationalise some of the concepts behind in our minds for a long period of time.<br />'' <br />'' Q. You recently remarked that you hope Sri Lanka to receive more investments from India in the future. West Container Terminal Project is the biggest foreign investment project in Sri Lanka in recent times. How is the progress?<br />'' <br />'' Foreign Minister: The progress has been quite good. Colombo port necessarily requires repeat extensions and expansions. 60 to 70% of the transshipments from Colombo port is linked with India. So in view of that, sometime ago, there was a trilateral memorandum of cooperation between government of Sri Lanka, India and Japan, for the development of East container terminal. Subsequently in early 2021, Sri Lanka decided to develop the east container terminal on its own. Thereafter we decided that we can invite Japan and India to participate on western container terminal development . But Japan did not participate. Thereafter Adanis, on their own, showed certain interest in the development of ports in Sri Lanka. I think they're good at it and they have been developing ports in India and the world. So for the WCT, Adani was chosen as the Sri Lankan investor and the government of Sri Lanka negotiated the necessary agreement in this regard. Actually other than the fact that because it was initially discussed as a trilateral development with India and Japan and Sri Lanka participating, the Indian government had no role in WCT. It is internal to Sri Lanka. The project is focusing well. According to estimates by implementing project it's phase one is scheduled to be made operational by 2024 so all good as far as Sri Lanka is concerned, and as far as the Project is concerned.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"><br />'' Q. Use of INR for settling economic transactions between India and Sri Lanka enables ease of doing business. In addition, what are the other measures that both Governments are looking at in order to pave way for stronger economic partnership.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"><br />''Foreign Minister: There are a number of initiatives we are looking at. We are looking at connecting people-to-people, connectivity to be improved, in terms of more flights, in terms of more ferry services and linkages between people-to-people that will probably help us in tourism and other areas of collaboration and renewable energy and to develop Trincomalee as energy hub and many more investments, probably in the industries, in technology transfer, in IT, and things like that. There are a lot of opportunities in the pipeline, we are hopeful we can materialise as we go along.</span><br />