Focussing on National Development Agenda:

New BOI investment promotion strategy

The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) Deputy Director General A. M. C. Kulasekera, addressed the Discover Sri Lanka Conference 2010 held recently, where over 25 fund managers of international repute participated. Kulasekera's address covered the role of the BOI in Sri Lanka's economy and gave prominence to the country's resilience during the three decades of conflict. Sri Lanka had achieved a total of US$ 5.8 billion in 30 years in spite of the ongoing conflict and indeed could have achieved five times that quantum of investment had there been peace in the country.

At the Discover Sri Lanka Conference

Sri Lanka had also weathered the current global economic downturn unlike most countries that experienced FDI downturns of 40-60 percent. Sri Lanka's performance had been comparatively good, having seen a slight decline in FDI from US$ 889 million in 2008 to US$ 602 million in 2009.

The main challenge that lay ahead was to harness future FDI to meet some of the National Development Goals of the Government. Currently the bulk of Sri Lanka's investment went into infrastructure, port development, power generation, telecommunications, manufacturing, services including the IT and BPO sectors and tourism.

But in the future the Government was looking at promoting investments in key areas which would impact favourably on the community at large such as investments in Agriculture (including agro industries, dairies and livestock development), Tourism, IT/ BPO, Education and Infrastructure (including township development). An additional sector earmarked for development was port related activities in view of the current expansion and development of the Colombo and Hambantota ports.

Kulasekera said, to reach an 8 percent economic growth, Sri Lanka will need to achieve a level of FDI inflows of 4 percent of the GDP (current FDI amounts to 2 percent of Sri Lanka's GDP).

This signifies a doubling of FDI, and the task of the BOI was to achieve an improved facilitation regime in partnership with other relevant agencies of the Government, notably in the port and thrust areas. "This new facilitation regime which will involve a co-ordinated approach on the part of all stakeholder agencies, will help Sri Lanka achieve her National Development Goals through the successful attraction of investment," Kulasekera said.