Maldives pledges ‘full support’ for timely completion of UTF harbor project

The Maldives has agreed with India to extend its full support for the timely completion of a project to develop a harbor and dockyard for the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) at the Uthuru Thila Falhu (UTF) military base.

The UTF project was signed during former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s administration and had been heavily criticized by the top officials within the People’s National Congress (PNC) at the time. The PNC, now the country’s main governing party, saw it as an attempt to build a defacto Indian naval base there and led protests against the deal.

Maldivian President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, who made a state visit to India this week, met with Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi in New Delhi for bilateral talks on Monday. The President’s Office recently publicized some of the details of the discussions.

One of the subject matters discussed was the MNDF harbor ‘Ekatha’ being developed in UTF with assistance from India.

According to the President’s Office, the two leaders agreed that the project will “significantly contribute towards enhancing MNDF's operational capabilities, and agreed to extend full support for its timely completion.”

The two sides also agreed:

• To support Maldives with provisioning of defense platforms and assets to augment capabilities of MNDF as well as that of the Government of Maldives in advancing its maritime and security requirements in line with its national priorities.
• To support Maldives in enhancing surveillance and monitoring capability of MNDF with the provisioning of radar systems and other equipment.
• To support Maldives on Hydrographic matters, including, through capacity building and training, as per the requirements of the Government of Maldives.
• To strengthen cooperation in the area of disaster response and risk mitigation, including through development of SOPs and exercises to achieve enhanced interoperability.
• To assist Maldives in the domain of Information Sharing by supporting the development of capabilities through infrastructure, training and sharing of best practices.
• To inaugurate at an early date the state-of-the-art Maldivian Ministry of Defense (MoD) building in Malé, constructed with India's assistance, that will augment modern infrastructural capacity of the MoD.
• To increase capacity building and training slots for MNDF, Maldives Police Services (MPS), and other security organizations of Maldives under the ITEC programs and other customized training programs in India.
• To extend financial assistance to develop and upgrade MNDF infrastructure.

The USD 186 million (MVR 2.9 billion) UTF harbor project was awarded to India’s Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) in December 2022.

The UTF is also central to plans by President Muizzu’s administration to bolster food security.

In March this year, the Maldives Industrial Development Freezone (MIDFZ) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) for a project that will see the reclamation of 200 hectors of land from UTF to develop an Agriculture Economic Zone (AEZ).

President Muizzu’s state visit to India has led to the resurfacing of publicly made comments by top PNC officials in the past that were critical of India-backed initiatives, including defense cooperation agreements such as the UTF project.

However, President Muizzu provided assurance that he will not do anything that will undermine Maldives’ sovereignty.