India has signed an agreement to set up hybrid power projects on northern Sri Lankan islands in a deal seen as a strategic victory in its competition with China for influence in the Indian Ocean.
Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is in Colombo for bilateral meetings, witnessed the signing, along with Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs Gamini Peiris, the Indian embassy said late on Monday.
In December, China announced its own project to build power plants on three Sri Lankan islands was suspended due to security concerns involving a “third party.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
An Indian official said he could not confirm if the plants in the new agreement are to be built on the same islands earmarked for the Chinese project. The power source and other details on the projects were not available.
India considers Sri Lanka, just across the narrow Palk Strait off India’s southeastern coast, to be in its sphere of influence, while the island nation in the middle of a key sea route connecting the east and west, is also important to China’s ambitious “One Belt, One Road” global infrastructure initiative.
“It is kind of substantial victory for India,” said Lynn Ockersz, a senior journalist and foreign relations analyst in Sri Lanka.
“Overall, it will be in a great position to influence Sri Lanka when it comes to policy issues affecting India,” he said.
Had the Chinese power plant project been realized, it would have placed China next to India’s southern coast. India and China already have running border disputes in other regions.
Jaishankar is also taking part in the 18th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, a meeting of Bay of Bengal nations Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand for economic cooperation.
The other agreements India signed include providing a maritime rescue coordination center and building fisheries harbors in Sri Lanka.
The agreements come amid Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in recent memory with shortages of medicine, fuel and milk power, and daily power outages lasting for hours.
Sri Lanka has approached both India and China for help. India provided a US$1 billion credit line to buy essentials following a previous US$500 billion to buy fuel. China is considering a request for a US$2.5 billion economic assistance from Sri Lanka.
Infrastructure projects that were built on Chinese loans, but do not make money are blamed for its debt crisis. Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves are dwindling, but it has to repay US$7 billion in foreign debts this year.
China has been non-committal to a request for debt restructuring.
Beijing has invested billions of dollars in building a sea port, airport, roads and a port city on reclaimed land near Colombo harbor, which the Sri Lankan government aims to develop into a financial city.
The Sri Lankan government previously scrapped a plan to allow China outright ownership to land on the Colombo Port City and provided 62 hectares on a 99-year lease instead.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
AI-FUELED DEMAND: The company has been benefiting from the skyrocketing prices for DRAM chips amid the AI frenzy, especially its core product — DDR4 DRAM chips DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday reported that its revenue for the first quarter surged 582.91 percent to NT$49.09 billion (US$1.54 billion) from NT$7.19 billion a year earlier, as the supply crunch caused chip price spikes. Last quarter’s figure is the highest on record. On a quarterly basis, revenue jumped 63.14 percent from NT$30.09 billion, the company said. In January, Nanya Technology expected global DRAM supply scarcity to continue through the first half of 2028, thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) forecast prices of standard DRAM chips would rise between 58 percent and 63
RSS