Several projects in the Hambantota International Port’s Industrial Park, including a mega capacity warehouse, are nearing completion, official sources revealed.

Hambantota International Port Group said that in spite of a certain slowdown during COVID-19, the international industrial park has secured over 40 projects from over 08+ countries and has emerged stronger as ever, adhering to their ‘HIP Speed’ concept to renew construction and meet deadlines.

A plug-and-play, park-in-park facility by Xinji Shenzhen Group will also be completed by the end of the year. The USD$ 15 million facility will provide ‘one stop’ services to light industries.

The 2-phase project, being built on 44,194 sq. meters of land, will be ready with its 1st phase of 1,500 sq meters warehouse by end December 2022 and is expected to begin operations by mid 2023.

The first phase of construction on two of the projects will be completed by the end of 2022. The first phase of the 3 million USD$ mega capacity warehouse by INSEE will see completion by February 2023 and move on to 2nd and 3rd phases immediately after.

INSEE expects the 17,300 sq. meters in-port warehousing complex to become wholly operational in the second quarter of next year. The warehouse will improve INSEE’s cargo discharging efficiency, resulting in better vessel turnaround times and significant savings in forex.

A covered bonded warehousing facility measuring 50,000 square feet is also being built by Hambantota Port Logistics Services (HLPL).

Upon completion, the facility will have a storage capacity of 45,000 metric tons and will mainly be used for local distribution and transshipment of fertiliser.

The 5,000 sq m warehouse will not only attract new cargo volumes to HIP, but will also contribute to the port’s goal of becoming a regional hub for bulk cargo.

Another USD$ 300 million tire manufacturing plant by Ceylon Tire Manufacturing and a luxury yacht manufacturing plant by Sea Horse Yachts are also slated for completion in the next few years to come.

In addition to the projects at ground level works, HIP projects in operations also includes USD$ 65 million Laugfs Gas terminal, USD$ 5 million Sinopec Fuel Oil Lanka operating HIP’s Tank Farm to carry out the business of ship refueling and oil trade in South Asia and Intertek Lanka for operating its field-testing laboratory.

Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe will be waiting for Godot as there was no signs of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) approval for the US $ 2.9 billion bail out loan in January 2023 as well.

Sri Lanka has already missed the Central Bank Governor’s December deadline and it is about to miss his prediction of the January 2023 date of receiving IMF executive board‘s approval for the island nation’s extended fund facility (EFF), official sources said.

Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told a recent media conference if Sri Lanka misses the board approval in December it plans to appear before the IMF Board in January 2023 and is optimistic that it would shortly receive assurance from bilateral creditors including China and India.

The approval for Sri Lanka’s $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to go beyond January 2023, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe said.

Accordingly, the approval of the IMF’s Board of Directors is likely to delay further, despite recent claims that approval would be given in January 2023.

Semasinghe assured, however, that maximum efforts are underway to receive the Board’s approval in the first quarter of 2023.

The bailout was initially expected to be approved by the end of this year, however progress has been slow in recent months.

Sri Lanka will miss the January 2023 deadline for securing an IMF loan, as the main bilateral debtors, China and India were still to give assurance for debt restructuring

Under this setup, Central Bank Governor Nandal Weerasinghe’s assertion of getting IMF executive board approval in January will not become a reality for the second time, several economic experts said.

They noted that Nandalal should not jump the gun like his previous backfiring announcement of preemptive debt default by the country without parliamentary approval.

IMF officials working on Sri Lanka’s bail out loan package have not announced any dead line on its executive Board approval.

Peter Breuer, Senior IMF Mission Chief for Sri Lanka noted that the initial disbursement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) is available at board approval, which is contingent on the implementation of prior actions by the authorities and the progress with discussions with creditors on restoring debt sustainability.

In the wake of Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera’s confirmation on another electricity tariff revision once again, the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) has vowed to intervene if the tariff is increased violating the basic rights of the people.

“The necessary details and a report to revise electricity tariffs will be presented to the first Cabinet of Ministers meeting on 2 January 2023,” the minister told journalists yesterday.

SLHRC claimed that the electricity bill increase in January next year will be seen as a violation against basic rights of the people.

The commission noted that the government or its stakeholders have no right to further harass the people who are already burdened by the current economic difficulties.

Accordingly, if the Power and Energy Ministry or the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) acts to raise the electricity bill from January, the SLHRC will intervene against it, SLHRC Director Nihal Chandrasiri said.

Despite the growing protests of electricity consumers, Sri Lanka’s Cabinet approved a hike in electricity tariffs by 70 percent under two steps in January and June 2023.

A senior official of the ministry said that although the electricity tariff has been increased by 75 percent in August 2022, it is not sufficient to cover the loss of the electricity board and thus, the request to increase the electricity bill has received cabinet approval.

This was disclosed at the Sub Committee on Identifying the Short & Medium-Term Programmes related to Economic Stabilization of the National Council held recently.

Accordingly, the relevant measures are to be taken to obtain approval of the Public Utility Commission, said Rohan Seneviratne, Additional General Manager of the Electricity Board.

It was also disclosed that the Electricity Board currently owes nearly Rs. 650 billion as loans to various parties including banks and electricity suppliers.

The Electricity Board representative stated that out of the amount to be paid, nearly Rs. 35 billion are to be paid to the organisations that supplied renewable energy and Rs. 75 billion are to be paid to Thermal power suppliers.

Thus, it was said that it is expected to at least make part payment to the suppliers from the Rs.50-billion-rupee loan expected to receive.

His comments come after the meeting of Cabinet Ministers on Monday did not take up the proposal to hike power tariff which was mooted earlier

On 10 August, tariffs were increased by an average of 75 percent across the board, after a lapse of nine years. Nevertheless, the CEB maintains that the revision is inadequate due to the demand increase for power generation.

However, Minister Wijesekera categorically rejected that 10-hour daily power cuts will be imposed in January, noting the claims made by certain unions attached to the CEB has no basis to impose a 10-hour power outage from January.

CEB expects to get 38 coal ships containing 60,000 tons of coal by 15 April 2023 and the five shipments received so far are only sufficient till December 31. After April, seas off the Western coast are too rough to unload ships.