Lanka leader to renegotiate China deals on visit

Sri Lanka's new president will use a visit to Beijing to renegotiate more than $5.3 billion-worth of Chinese deals signed by his predecessor, a minister said yesterday, calling it a strategy of "economic self-defence".

President Maithripala Sirisena has already suspended construction work on a major Chinese-funded land reclamation project commissioned by his predecessor Mahinda Rajapakse, who relied heavily on China to rebuild the country's infrastructure during his decade in power.

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Finance minister Ravi Karunanayake yesterday said Chinese companies operating in Sri Lanka were "corrupt", using unusually blunt language days before Sirisena's first state visit to Beijing.

"What we want to tell the (Chinese) president is that the government of China is clean, but Chinese companies (operating in Sri Lanka) are corrupt," said Karunanayake, who will accompany Sirisena on the trip.

"We are basically saying, look at the costs these people have quoted and look at the internationally accepted rate," he told reporters.

Sri Lanka has already complained that it is paying too much interest on the Chinese loans funding its infrastructure development.