Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday Dec 13, 2024
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 01:23 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Uditha Jayasinghe
Despite attracting low Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of US$ 218 million for the first quarter of 2013, a top Minister said yesterday that the country had received applications topping $ 5 billion.
An upbeat Investment Promotion Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena insisted that the post-war economy was doing well in terms of FDI, pointing out that in the first quarter alone 37 ventures with investment of over US$ 1 billion and another 144 with less than US$ 1 billion had been completed. The country, which ended a three-decade war in 2009, is also planning to start an information desk and a one-stop-shop for investors within the next month while a Monitoring Department for FDI is also in the pipeline.
“We have received many large scale applications; in fact there are over 30 projects that have come in where each is valued at US$ 300 million or more. This is roughly more than US$ 5 billion in investment,” he told media. Abeywardena noted that these projects would get priority as the Ministry aims to meet the US$ 2 billion target set for FDIs in 2013 by the Government.
A mechanism connecting all public departments to reduce red tape and fast track investment will be formulated under the Board of Investment (BOI), which is the investment arm of the Government, he added.The one-stop-shop concept has been suggested several times before but the Government has so far failed to implement it and the Minister assured that this time it would see reality.
Investment applications have flooded in from Taiwan, Canada, Virgin Islands, the Netherlands, Singapore, UK and Australia, which Abeywardena stated was evidence of the global interest attracted by Sri Lanka.
“One of the biggest investment deals is a Rs. 9 billion agreement with Singapore’s Raffles University to begin a private university in Negombo. In addition, SIAC Construction Company in the UK will also invest US$ 21 million in a housing project while India’s Jain Infraprojects will pump in US$ 154 million into another large-scale housing scheme.”
The Sampur power project will add to these numbers after it is signed, but the Minister pledged that the glitches would be taken out of it first.
Even though the war ended four years ago, Sri Lanka’s FDI record has been lacklustre with the Government only being able to meet half the US$ 2 billion target set for 2012.
