COLOMBO: The Kingdom’s envoy in Colombo announced Thursday that Saudi Arabia would provide funding for a bridge construction project in the Trincomalee region in the east of Sri Lanka. A revised agreement has been reached by the Saudi Fund for Development and Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development for an infrastructure project worth $10.5 million that will link the coastal town of Kinniya to the Kurinchakerny peninsula.
“(Around) $10.5 million has been allocated for the construction of Kurinchakerny Bridge, facilitating the transportation and business needs of approximately 100,000 residents,” the ministry said on Wednesday. According to Khalid bin Hamoud Al-Kahtani, the Saudi Ambassador to Sri Lanka, the money was recycled from a previous initiative between the SFD and the Sri Lankan government.
The Peradeniya-Badulla-Chenkaladi route, which united Sri Lanka’s eastern, middle, and southern provinces, was previously rebuilt with funding from the Kingdom. The enormous project was finished in 2021 and contributed to increased mobility and traffic safety in the island nation. “The Sri Lankan government requested that the remaining funds from the project be used for the project’s construction,” Al-Kahtani told Arab News.
It is anticipated that the updated agreement will mobilise the remaining monies from the aforementioned project to build the Kurinchakerny Bridge (in Kinniya). It is intended to address a number of transportation-related issues.
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