After deteriorating during the early part of President Maithripala Sirisena’s tenure, Sri Lanka’s relations with China appear to be on firmer footing as both sides continue to iron out differences over Chinese investments in the island country.

“In most of the cases, we found we got better terms,” Kabir Hashim, Minister of Public Enterprise Development, told the Nikkei Asian Review. He added that a few more Beijing-backed projects are currently under review.

“In some cases we renegotiated the loans, in some cases the contracts had legal issues, which we cleared up,” Hashim said, without going into detail about specific projects.

Under the previous president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka forged close relations with China as Beijing’s economy boomed and China’s overseas economic reach grew rapidly during Rajapaksa’s decade in office from 2005.

Sri Lanka’s relations with the U.S. and with India, its giant neighbor to the north, diminished as ties with China grew — and as the country’s government fought a savage and ultimately successful civil war against ethnic Tamils, with civilians suffering the brunt of the army’s onslaught. In a signal of an increasingly close bilateral relationship, China worked to stymie potential U.N. Security Council measures against Colombo after the civil war ended in 2009.