(Yicai Global) Jan. 9 -- The completion and transfer ceremony was held yesterday for the Moragahakanda Dam (M Dam) in central Sri Lanka that a Chinese enterprise constructed. It is expected to help redress issues such as uneven resource distribution and flood disasters, the state Xinhua News Agency reported.

President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka, and Pang Chunxue, the temporary ambassador of the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka, among others, attended the ceremony. Water instantly gushed out of the spillway after representatives of both countries jointly pressed an activation button. As thousands of Sri Lankans looked on, Pang officially transferred the project's inauguration key and engineering data to Sirisena.

With a water storage capacity of 570 million cubic meters and a power generation capacity of 25 megawatts, the M Dam project is the largest water control project in Sri Lanka. It transects the island nation from south to north and will coordinate the use of water in the dry season stored during the monsoon with its huge storage capacity, and conduit water from the central region to the north.

Construction on the dam began in July 2012, and finished in January last year, when it began impounding water. It will not only help to supply water to a large downstream area, but also enhance flood control during the rainy season and will greatly improve the quality of the power supply in the region, said Pan Dengyu, vice general manager of the Eurasian regional headquarters of the project's prime contractor Power Construction Corp. of China [SHA:601669]. Sinohydro Corp. built the reservoirs dam at an estimated cost of USD252 million. Sri Lanka, which is greatly in debt to Chinese enterprises, ceded its port of Hambantota to China in December on a 99-year lease pursuant to China's One Belt, One Road initiative to resurrect the ancient Silk Road.