Colombo Port City (CPC) has received 17 investment proposals which currently await regulations to be in place to initiate work at the financial city, State Minister of Investment Promotion Dilum Amunugama said.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday (19) presenting the Regulations for planning clearing and development permits for authorised persons within the Colombo Port City, the state minister said that Port City has received a total of 17 investment proposals which are waiting for the regulations to be approved to start work.

“After passing the regulations today at Parliament, there will be a huge change because after approving them (regulations), the 17 investors can start engaging with the Port City,” he said. 

However, he said that there are some operational regulations that need to be approved which the Government is working on to bring to the Parliament soon.

Moreover, Amunugama said that Port City will be officially launched in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on 26 September in which the Colombo Port City name could be slightly changed to Colombo Financial City for branding purposes. “But it has not yet been finalised,” he added.

Further, responding to the state minister’s speech, Opposition MP Dr. Harsha de Silva said that rebranding Port City as Colombo Financial City should not be done as creating a financial city is not easy.

“Doing another financial centre in between the Dubai and Singapore Financial Centres is not easy and a bankrupt country doing a financial centre is a joke,” he said  

He added that the most suitable plan would be to create a knowledge city at the Colombo Port City to provide Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence services as the port city is a special economic zone for services.