Ceylon Chamber, CII, BOI sign MoU to boost investment

BY SHIRAJIV Sirimane

THE Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Rohitha Bogollagama initiated the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce to a Memorandum of Understanding with Confederation of India Industry (CII). "This will open new avenues of investment between the two countries," he said.

The CII is the premier business association in India incorporating the largest 5000 companies from various sectors and Services. It also has 48 branches all over India.

The prime objective of the MoU is to promote investment relations between Sri Lanka and India. "We want India to consider Sri Lanka as the best location for their investments," he said. The MoU involves three parties, CCC BoI and the CII.

He said that the recent visit by President Mahinda Rajapakshe was very successful and it was able to secure over US 550 million dollars of foreign direct investments to Sri Lanka.

He said that the present tension in the North East has not had any negative impact for investors. "We have gone through this earlier and there were investments made even during the worst time of war," he said.

The trade between the two countries are the creasing 2004 Sri Lanka exports to India were US $382 million while India's exports to Sri Lanka were US $ 1350 million.

Although the trade balance is in favour of Sri Lanka the ratio between Sri Lanka's import from India and Sri Lanka's export to India has come to 3.5:1 from a ration of almost 10:1 in 2000.

Minister said that they are confident of achieving US$ one billion this year and also said that they are hoping to generate 100,000 employment opportunities this year.

"This amount would double in 2007 since most of the companies would be commencing their businesses in one year and they would be needing staff," he said.