Construction work of the South Container Terminal will start on December 01, 2011 and first 600 metres will be in operation in early 2014, the statement said.
It will handle an estimated as 2.4 million containers and the entire terminal will be completed in 2016.
The China Merchants Holdings (International) will provide a shareholder loan facility up to 350 million dollars and the rest of the capital is to be raised by the shareholders equity. The agreements were the site lease agreement, shareholders agreement, direct lenders agreement and facility agreement, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority said in a statement.
The 500 million US dollar South Container Terminal is to be built and operated by Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT), a joint venture between Sri Lanka Ports Authority, China Merchants Holding, and Aitken Spence.
"The construction of this terminal is one of the largest Public Private Partnership projects recently in Sri Lanka," it said.
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