Sri Lankan President targets faster FDI approvals to drive growth
The Morning: Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has unveiled plans to dramatically reduce the time taken for investment project approvals; a move he believes will push the country’s GDP growth rate beyond 4% in 2025.
Speaking at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit in Colombo on 28 January, he highlighted delays in the approval process as a key obstacle to attracting foreign direct investments (FDI).
The President announced that approval times for Board of Investment (BOI) projects, which currently take 80 days, will be cut to just two weeks.
Similarly, environmental projects, which face an average approval time of 256 days, nearly two years, will be fast-tracked to 82 days.
Following a severe contraction of 7.8% in 2022, Sri Lanka’s economy began to stabilise in 2024, achieving quarterly growth rates of 5.3% and 5.5%.
However, there is a need for more FDI inflows to sustain and accelerate this recovery.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka is focused on attracting more FDIs to the country in the coming months with the Sri Lankan President and government all expressing commitment to further improve the ease of doing business environment in the country. With Sri Lanka working on becoming a regional hub supported by the country’s strategic positioning in the Indian Ocean and the many trade agreements as well as concessions enjoyed by Sri Lanka with other countries, the overall economic expansion witnessed at present by the country has opened up many business/investment opportunities as well. The many business/investment opportunities that have been created by the increase in economic activities in Sri Lanka’s key economic sectors present a host of lucrative opportunities for foreign businesses/investors exploring business ventures in the South Asian region, especially in Sri Lanka. The growth and expansion of many local businesses is also indicative of the increasing business potential in Sri Lanka. Foreign businesses/investors could also look at forming partnerships or joint ventures with local businesses with the aim of expanding operations locally and internationally using the preferential treatment enjoyed by Sri Lanka with many countries, especially in the region.
Article Code : | VBS/AT/20250131/Z_1 |