Sri Lanka, March 28 -- Making an international effort to review the Bastian Road Colombo floating market, the Urban Development Authority roped in a Japanese investor Akita Hirose and a MoU was signed yesterday at UDA under the chairmanship of Nimesh Herath.

This would be for a 30 year period under a public private partnership. This floating mall was created during the Colombo beautification program in 2014 under UDA Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa with an investment of RS. 350 million and with expected 50% ROI in five years. However it never took off due to many issues and subsequent attempts by several other bodies too failed. There were 92 shop owners but almost 50% of them folded up as the project was not

viable. When President Gotabay...