On July 24, 2017, China's Ambassador told Colombo's Sunday Times that China was not interested in any debt for equity swaps proposed by Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for infrastructure projects, including Mattala International Airport and portions of the Hambantota deep sea port. He said China's government will, however, help clear the road for Chinese companies to take over key projects in Sri Lanka. IZP, a Chinese informational technology company, has been put forward as a potential purchaser of Mattala International Airport, while COSCO is looking into expanding operations at the Hambantota deep sea port. China at the same time has been given the go ahead for the Colombo Port City development project and just last week China requested 15,000 acres of land in Hambantota for the building of a massive, million worker special economic zone.

(Comment: With just two flights per day, Mattala International is more than likely the most underused international airport in the world and the Hambantota port is also running at severe under-capacity, while the brand new and fully modern highways that run through this region are mostly devoid of vehicles.)