'We are confident that we will be able to sort out all outstanding issues and we will be able to go forward,' said Sarma.

The Smart City Kochi project's foundation stone was laid Nov 16, 2007 by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, but there has been no progress since then.

Achuthanandan has also accused the Dubai-based developer of making 'unreasonable demands'.

The proposed project, to be jointly launched by the state government and Smart City Dubai, is slated to come up on a 246-acre plot with 8.8 million square feet of built-up space, of which 70 percent is earmarked for IT and IT-enabled services.

The government has given a special economic zone status for 136 acres of the project.

But neither has it completed the registration of the land nor settled the stamp duty issue.