Sri Lanka’s Board of Investments realigns confidence of investors through webinar series.
Daily FT: The Board of Investment (BOI), has launched a series of online webinars that aims at raising awareness about the potential investment opportunities in Sri Lanka and thus, attracting new investors despite setbacks.
The BOI is of the view that times of hardships can be a time for new opportunities for investors to engage in novel investments in the country. As such, the BOI is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it moves in the positive direction so as to make a point of bringing in new investments to the country.
In addition, the webinar series also creates a platform for investors to gain awareness about the Investor Facilitation Centre (IFC), which was unveiled recently on the 27th floor at the West Tower of the World Trade Centre with the objective of streamlining services provided to investors.
The first of the series was held last week via zoom covering the manufacturing sector with the participants from across the globe. The 60-minute webinar got off the ground with the presentation delivered by BOI Director General Renuka M. Weerakone, where she gave an overview on the topic ‘Why Sri Lanka’ underscoring the areas like investment climate, investment incentives, talent and education, market access, quality of life and location advantages.
While highlighting the incentives and facilities that BOI is geared to grant for the manufacturing sector, Weerakone elucidated on investment opportunities available in the industries come under the manufacturing sector, namely, electronics and electrical components, boat building, rubber-based products, textile and apparels, automotive components and pharmaceutical and medical devices.
The session was then followed by a question-and-answer session, which enabled registered participants to pose their questions to the panel of senior BOI officials.
The webinar had an overwhelming interest with the registration of 206 participants from various countries including China, Japan, India, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Turkey, USA and Canada.
Commenting on the webinar series, BOI Chairman Raja Edirisuriya said: “A webinar series of this nature is indeed opportune as it enhances the confidence of the investors encouraging them to invest in Sri Lanka irrespective of the turbulent circumstances prevailing in the country.”
“As far as the first webinar is concerned, it was a huge success as we witnessed the participants from different parts of the world, who had joined the webinar with great interest and enthusiasm. This is also an encouraging factor at this juncture where Sri Lanka is facing economic hardships,” Chairman added.
The subsequent webinars in the series will explore the sectors such as ICT, Agriculture and Food Processing, Logistic and Utility sectors respectively.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment is engaged in an aggressive campaign sometimes together with the country’s overseas missions to promote the many business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka among foreign businesses/investors. The country’s geographical positioning in the Indian Ocean and the many trade agreements as well as concessions enjoyed have made Sri Lanka an attractive business destination in the South Asian region. Sri Lanka’s economy has also shown great resilience to external and internal challenges through the years and is once again on the path to recovery after facing the global pandemic as well as its resultant economic crisis. The country’s increasing economic activities have opened up a host of new business/investment opportunities covering all key economic sectors as well as attractive incentive schemes to attract foreign businesses/investors. Given the increasing business potential of the country, foreign businesses/investors could confidently explore the growing opportunities in Sri Lanka.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/19072022/X_3 |