Sri Lanka needs to attract more FDI to create equal development opportunities particularly in rural geographies and to improve the quality of employment opportunities, Mangala Yapa Chairman of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka said.
“Western Province accounts for about 45% of country’s GDP, however other regions are not growing as fast as the Western Province. The unequal development is a major challenge for Sri Lanka and to redress this challenge, we need to attract more FDI into that area because the country doesn’t have sufficient savings nor the government can pump in more money into those areas,” he told the 4th edition of Sri Lanka Investment Business Conclave 2019, organized by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce at the Shangri-La hotel yesterday.
Despite the fact that the country has been extremely successful in many areas, he said regrettably, the country has also failed in two aspects; FDI and development goals.
“Other critical aspect is the quality of employment. We may be very good at unemployment which is at 4 percent. But there is still huge underemployment. Again to address this issue, the FDI has to come into those areas. On one side, there is a dire need for FDI to flow into Sri Lanka. So that we could get out of this situation and move forward.
On the other hand, Sri Lanka has a huge package that can offer. But unfortunately, due to global situations and internal conflicts; country is not moving in the right direction so far. Sri Lanka’s strategy is to become a value added hub in the region.To realize this vision; it is essential for us to focus more on the manufacturing sector.
Sri Lanka is ready to take off, but for some reasons, such as internal and external factors, it hasn’t happened as yet. Perhaps many countries don’t know much about Sri Lanka particularly when you go to countries like Japan.”
Speaking further, he said that BOI has taken various measures to promote Sri Lanka as a preferred investment destination among other countries including Japan.
“Sri Lanka is correctly located and it has the same potential or bigger potential than Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. However it requires more investment in the logistic sector.”
He said further that Sri Lanka should create that unique Japanese authentic hospitality culture in order to attract more Japanese investors into Sri Lanka.
Speaking at the event, Liang Thow Ming, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at CHEC Port City Colombo (Pvt) Ltd, said the vision of the Port City is to build a world class project for South Asia, fulfilling Sri Lanka’s ambition to be a hub within the region. To this end, he said, the project developer is working at a fast pace to try and develop the piece of empty land into the next Metropolis in South Asia.
He said further that work on reclamation and marine structure of the project has already been completed and the work on the Eastern half of the project is accepted to be completed by end of the next year.
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