Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani calls on Sri Lankan President

Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani on Monday called on Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, weeks after his company sealed a deal with the state-owned Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) to develop and run the strategic Colombo Port’s Western Container Terminal.

Adani, who is in the island nation on a private visit, called on President Rajapaksa, sources said, without disclosing the details of the meeting.

The billionaire businessman accompanied by a delegation of 10 members flew into the island by two special flights on Sunday, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported.

Ahmedabad-headquartered Indian multinational conglomerate Adani Group last month entered into an agreement with the Lanka government owned Port Authority to develop the Colombo Port’s West International Container Terminal. The $700 million Build-Operate-Transfer deal is the largest foreign investment ever in the port sector of the island nation.

The Colombo Port is one of the most preferred regional hubs for transhipment of Indian containers and mainline ship operators with 45 per cent of Colombo's transhipment volumes originating from or destined to an Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) terminal in India.

The WCT proposal came after Sri Lanka decided to retract the previous memorandum of understanding signed in 2019 with India and Japan on the Eastern Container Terminal (ECT).

The WCT will be developed on a Build, Operate and Transfer basis for a period of 35 years as a public-private partnership, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones Ltd. said in a press release in March.

The project is expected to boost WCT’s container handling capacity and further consolidate Sri Lanka’s locational advantage as one of the world’s top strategic nodes along the busiest global transhipment route, it said.

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