Export-oriented mega high speed rail project hits the buffers
An ambitious mega high speed rail and mixed development project has become a non-starter due to the delay in approving the project by the Board of Investment (BOI), official sources said.
The project company, High Speed Railway Corporation (Pvt.) Ltd (HSRC) will soon take a decision to shift the project to Vietnam due to alleged negligence of the BOI officials, a company official disclosed.
The main aim of the company is to produce electric trains and export it to Europe, US, Canada, Russia, Australia and some countries in Asia, he revealed.
The application to get the investment approval was submitted to the BOI along with the project proposal in October 2016, but no action has been taken so far, he said adding that the BOI officials informed the company that the approval of the single window committee of Prime Minister’s advisor R. Paskaralingam has been sought to take a final decision on the project.
This matter was informed in writing to the President and the Secretary to the Ministry of Development Strategies and International development in September this year but so far the company has not received any reply from them, he pointed out.
High Speed Railway Corporation (Pvt.) Ltd (HSRC), a company that plans to develop high-speed rail in Sri Lanka, had partnered with Castlepines Global Equities (CGE) (Japan office), an international equity investment company, in a bid to introduce the magnetic levitation (maglev) technology to Sri Lanka.
HSRC and CGE have jointly extended a mandate to the Korean Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM), which has pioneered the maglev technology into an urbanized version that has been successfully implemented in Korea with efficiency and economic value for both the operator and passenger. The initial investment of the project will be US$ 537 million, he disclosed.
When asked to comment on the delay in granting approval for the project, a senior BOI official said that the company has failed to submit a proper application and there were some shortcomings in its investment and project proposals.