ECONOMYNEXT — Sri Lanka can recover the entire 9.7 billion rupees spent by the Treasury on the Colombo Port City once it leases its first state-owned land parcel, officials told parliament’s Committee on Public Finance (COPF).
The Ministry of Finance informed the committee that 9.7 billion rupees had been allocated from the budget for the development.
COPF Chairman Harsha de Silva asked for a detailed breakdown of the spending, questioning whether the state had received equity, a loan repayment, or if the allocation was treated as a grant.
“It’s the budgeted amount as government money. It’s not a grant or it’s not a loan. It’s a government budgeted amount,” A Saarrankan, Additional Director General of the Corporate Affairs Division at the Ministry of Finance, said.
Colombo Port City Economic Commission (CPCEC) Chairman Harsha Amarasekera told the committee that the state is now positioned to market its first land parcel because 7 private project company plots have already been leased, fulfilling the required proportion of one government plot for every seven.
The commission has already identified four government plots and is preparing to market one of them to investors, Amarasekera said.
“The moment that is done, all of such funds, sans the 1 percent, goes to the Consolidated Fund… So with the sale of the first government plot, the totality of the moneys thus far spent would be recovered by the state,” Amarasekera said.
The committee noted that the 1 percent commission on transactions completed so far amounts to roughly 400 million rupees, pointing to a cumulative lease value of around 40 billion rupees for those plots on 99-year lease agreements.
Officials added that the project company had sold land at approximately 3,000 US dollars per square metre.
Providing a breakdown of the overall property allocation, CPCEC Director General Revan Wickramasuriya said all land was vested with the Commission under a presidential grant via the State Lands Ordinance.
Out of 118 total land parcels in the Port City, 46 were leased to the Project Company, 10 of which have since been surrendered and leased to specific investors.
The government holds 28 marketable land parcels, with the remainder reserved for public areas and parks. (Colombo/Oct15/2026)