With GMR out, Chinese firm bags Male airport deal

BEIJING: A Chinese firm has bagged a deal for upgrading the international airport in Male, the capital of Maldives, after President Xi Jinping visited the island nation on Monday. The Maldives government had earlier given the $511 million contract to an Indian company, GMR Infrastructure, and cancelled it two years ago over user charges. The deal has now gone to Beijing Urban Construction Group Company Ltd.
The move has strategic significance in the Indian Ocean area, particularly in light of Chinese contractors building sea ports in Sri Lanka. Significantly, the Maldives also accepted President Xi’s request to join the Chinese Maritime Silk Road programme, aimed at linking China to Europe through the seas of South Asia. Sri Lanka and Singapore have earlier expressed their desire to join the programme, which will connect China with the Indian Ocean.
President Xi, it is learnt, is expected to request Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his green signal for India’s participation in the plan to transform the Indian Ocean zone into the regional shipping and aviation hub.
Another significant offer from Male is to help China play a bigger role in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The move could pose engrossing questions before the Indian leadership which has hitherto tried to preclude any increase in Chinese influence in the South Asian region.
Maldives has expressed its interest in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. India and Pakistan are observers to SCO, which is considering their request of full membership for a while now. Chinese experts have been saying Beijing should open SCO’s doors to more countries instead of restricting it to India and Pakistan.
Xi, who visited Sri Lanka on Tuesday, also assured President Mahinda Rajapakse of an early start to the construction of a Beijing-funded $1.4 billion port city near Colombo. A Chinese-funded 900mw coal power plant was commissioned during Xi’s Sri Lankan tour.
“The two sides agreed to strengthen defence cooperation... and to cooperate in areas of defence-related science and technology, exchange of military academics, and provide logistical support,” China and Sri Lanka said in a joint statement, after Xi’s visit, before he left for India.