Maldives keen on Double Taxation Avoidance, Investment Guarantee deals with SL

By Divya Thotawatte

The Maldives is keen to sign Double Taxation Avoidance and Investment Guarantee agreements with Sri Lanka, its Ambassador Hussain Shareef revealed last week.

The Ambassador said that they had discussed the possibility of a Double Taxation Avoidance agreement and an Investment Guarantee Agreement with the Sri Lankan Government in order to give importance to entrepreneurs on both sides.

“The Maldives has been seeking investment guarantee agreements and double taxation agreements with a number of countries. We already have them with some countries. We have a list of countries based on who invests in the Maldives, who we think will benefit from that. Sri Lanka is one of those because, of course, many Sri Lankan companies are investing in Maldives,” Shareef told a National Chamber of Commerce organised forum titled ‘Bilateral Trade between Sri Lanka and Maldives’.

He said that bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and Maldives could be enhanced by Sri Lankan venture capitalists.

The Ambassador stressed on the opportunities in investing in the real estate and construction sector of Maldives. “Sri Lanka is one country that helped us to realise our goals in infrastructure very quickly. Sri Lanka has very good port builders. Maldives is 99.4% sea, so the preferred mode of transport would be by sea. There is a lot of demand for ports, not just commercially,” he stated.

Ambassador Shareef was also very positive on the opportunities for exports found in the tourism sector. According to him, there is a huge demand for high-quality consumer goods, including food and electronic equipment as a result of rising GDP and the opening of new luxury resorts.

He also spoke on how Sri Lanka benefits from the bilateral trade and tourism between the two countries. “We are now the number one source of medical tourism and education tourism of Sri Lanka. We are also third place in source of overall tourism. After the Chinese and Indians most of the people coming to Sri Lanka as tourists are Maldivians. 

There are international schools in Sri Lanka who actually have more Maldivian students than Sri Lankans. There are over 10,000 Maldivians who currently live in Sri Lanka and that is in our perspective a large number.”