Hambantota: an industrial estate for the processors in this list

A first step

Choose 3 processing ideas from this list that need land near a port, such as spice, coconut or mineral processing, and ask small firms already doing them elsewhere on the island whether they would move or expand to a shared estate. Note what each needs: power, water, a shipping rate. Written expressions of interest from all 3 are the case you take to the port's land managers.

Who pays first

A small processor already exporting from the island, who would pay rent for serviced land beside a port to cut the cost of moving goods to Colombo.

What leaves today

Raw goods leave the island unprocessed while the port's land stands empty, and an estate of processors turns that land into value added before shipping.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. SeventeenOne Building
  One building, and what a city could be known for

More from cluster 26

• 476Colombo: a night market on the Galle Face green run to a standard, every weekend
• 477Colombo: the Pettah as a managed market street, cleaned, lit and sold to visitors as the best bazaar in Asia
• 478Kandy: the lake promenade with cafés and evening performances, not only the temple
• 479Galle: a residents' company that owns the Fort's tourist lets and keeps the residents in
• 480Jaffna: a culinary capital, the crab and the palmyrah sold as a cuisine
• 481Trincomalee: the harbour as a sailing and diving centre for the Bay of Bengal

All 10 ideas in this cluster