What is the impact to Electricity, Water and other utilities from Port City? What kind of administration will Port City fall under? What kind of law will be applicable?

Thulci mentioned that they have modeled the energy and water usage of the port city. He further mentioned that development of all internal utility infrastructure is the responsibility of the Project Company and it is the responsibility of the GoSL to bring the required connectivity to the periphery of the Port City. However, if there are short falls on the generation plan from the GoSL, the Port City will have an impact. As a contingency, the Project Company are also evaluating alternative plans.

On the administration front, Port City was declared as a part of Colombo. Very importantly, there are two things to be noted. Firstly, an estate management company will be set up as a joint venture between the GoSL and the Project Company. This joint venture company will administer and manage the common areas within Port City which includes parks, waterways, roads and other common areas to ensure of an efficient service and quality. There will be a Port City Authority or a Commission which would be a government body incorporated by an Act of Parliament to administer any business and investment activity within port city and required a license to be obtained through this Authority or Commission. The proposed government authority or commission will operate within Port City so that it will be the administrative arrangement for managing the hard and soft infrastructure. These licenses will be reviewed and renewed to ensure compliance.

Finally, he further stressed that the landlord of the port city is GoSL, and the Project Company has been given a certain amount of land parcels on a 99-year lease to monetize for the investment already made.

On a different note, similar to the Industrial Zones of the Board of Investment, which is more manufacturing oriented, the Port City is going to be service-oriented Special Economic Zone.

He further stated that the Port City can be a tool to reform some laws and regulations in a controlled environment. It can also act as a solution for the GoSL to test some of these policies such as Smart Taxing. They can then selectively roll it out to the rest of Colombo and Sri Lanka.