The $7.5 billion price tag for a Chinese-built deep-sea port in the Myanmar town of Kyaukpyu was "crazy" and "absurd," according to a key adviser to Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
China's CITIC Group, which won a tender to build the port three years ago, has valued the port and an accompanying special economic zone at around $10 billion.
"That's crazy," Sean Turnell, special economic consultant to Suu Kyi, told a seminar in Singapore on Friday. "That's way, way, way beyond what you would need for something like that, and this is something the government has paid attention to," he said.