HCL Technologies India will initially invest USD 10 million to launch their operations in Sri Lanka and provide over 5,000 employment opportunities in the next four years, Srimathi Shivashankar, Executive Vice President, HCL Technologies, said in Colombo yesterday over zoom.
“ICT investments are not very huge but the knowledge and high performing employment opportunities a country get is significant,” she said.
Shankar said that they will also establish a campus in Sri Lanka under the phase two development plan for Sri Lanka. “This would be a bigger infrastructure investment.”
HCL Technologies has already opened an interim office at World Trade Centre and will move in to Orion City end of the year to start operations. “We will have a R&D centre and other operations in Sri Lanka under the guidance of Indian technical staff.”
“In the last few months we have met and evaluated thousands of potential candidates in Sri Lanka and found most of them to be energetic, have professional attitudes and to be extremely quality conscious.’
With a worldwide network of R&D, innovation labs and delivery centres, and 150,000+ ‘Ideapreneurs’ working in 46 countries she said that they were impressed with local talent and investment regulations which made them to enter Sri Lanka.
She however rules out having a HCL BPO centre in Sri Lanka. HCL serves leading enterprises across key industries, including 250 of the Fortune 500 and 650 of the Global 2000. HCL generated consolidated revenues of USD 9.94 billion for the 12 months ended March, 31, 2020. In Sri Lanka they will work with ESOFT.
Shivashankar said that the ongoing Covid pandemic has not pushed back their investments and work and are continuing their operations as there is a demand for ICT based services.
Chairman Board of Investment Susantha Ratnayake while welcoming the Indian investment said that said that the presence of HCL in Sri Lanka would expose Sri Lanka to Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies. He said that they are also working with the government to woo more FDI to Sri Lanka and looking at reducing red tape and other bottle necks. “We want to move up further in the Doing Business index.”
Sri Lanka is accelerating into an emerging destination of choice for the global ITO and BPM market. The country is one of the best destinations for providing off-shore services for Information Technology Enabled Service (ITEs) as well as services related to Finance and Accounting, Legal, Insurance, Banking, and Telecommunications.
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