Bahrain to invest more in Sri Lanka

Charumini DE SILVA

Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Anura Priyadharshana Yapa welcomed a delegation from the Kingdom of Bahrain headed by Minister of Commerce and Industry of Bahrain Dr. Hassan Abdullah Fakhro and Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Bahrain Dr. Essam Abdullah Fakhro and other senior officials.

Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Anura Priyadharshana Yapa shows the progress of the Colombo Port expansion project from the World Trade Centre to Dr. Hassan Abdullah Fakhro and to the other Bahrain officials. Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe

“We are interested in investing in the tourism sector, especially in the Eastern province. We hope that tourism is the best sector that we could work together successfully.

“We also would like to invest in the agriculture sector, since in Bahrain it is very limited.

“We wish to import food commodities. In these sectors Sri Lanka could play a big role”, said Minister of Commerce and Industry of Bahrain Dr. Hassan Abdullah Fakhro.

The discussions between Minister Yapa and the BOI official with the Bahrain delegation are centered on expanding trade and investment relations.

The BOI expects that the visit of this Bahrain delegation will pave the way for an expansion of FDI from their country to Sri Lanka. At present there are three Bahrain enterprises in the country that operate in Sri Lanka under the BOI regime.

One of them is a ship repair and ship management enterprises while the other two operate under normal laws are holding companies.

Dr. Hassan said, there was a good response from the President Mahinda Rajapaksa and all other Sri Lankan officials for investment and economic cooperation between the two countries.

The Bahrain investors are looking forward to invest in tourism, financial, apparel, textile, gem and jewellery, fish farming, food security and agriculture.

“There are Sri Lankan employees, workers, technicians working in Bahrain. The visit will strengthen and develop further economic corporations between the two nations”, he said.