BOI impresses Japanese investors in Singapore

Monday, 23 February 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Deputy Minister of Highways, Higher Education and Investment Promotion Eran Wickramaratne holds discussions in Singapore at recent Investment Promotion Mission. The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka conducted a series of events in Singapore in collaboration with Mizuho Bank which had signed a MOU recently with BOI to promote Japanese investment into Sri Lanka. Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Advisor Keizo Tsuchiya initiated this investment promotion mission. Deputy Minister of Highways, Higher Education and Investment Promotion Eran Wickramaratne led the BOI delegation to Singapore recently to participate in events aiming at promoting Singaporean investment including from Singapore based enterprises. The Government’s vision is to accelerate Sri Lanka as a Logistics and Maritime hub in Asia. Sri Lanka is now well positioned with a developed infrastructure to promote investment in the logistics trade such as entrepot trade, offshore business, front-end services, headquarters operations and logistics services. In order to attract more Japanese investment into Sri Lanka ‘The Logistic Services Study Group’ (LSSG) was set up by the JICA advisor prior to this mission. This LSSG comprised of logistics giants such as Sagawa, Yusen Logistics and Nippon Express. In addition the BOI, JICA and JETRO are also represented in the study group. “The main objective of this mission was to convince Japanese companies which are in the logistics trade in Singapore by inviting them to invest in Sri Lanka,” said Tsuchiya. “The study group will study the best practices of warehousing, minor processing and offshore business in the region,” he further stated. Wickramaratne participated at several investment promotions events organised in Singapore set up by Mizuho Bank Ltd at Westin Hotel followed by networking sessions arranged by Fujitec Logistics, Toshiba Company, Japanese Chamber of Commerce (Singapore Branch) B.P. de Silva Group and Altair – Iconic Development in Colombo, Sri Lanka The Deputy Minister also had the opportunity to meet several Singaporean Investors and Sri Lankan Investors based in Singapore. Members of the delegation from BOI comprised of Executive Director Renuka Weerakoon, Director (Investor Services) Mahinda Ramanayake, Deputy Director/Desk Officer for Singapore Manilal Ranasinghe and Investment Promotion from Japan Advisor Keizo Tsuchiya.