Sri Lanka’s Port City receives 17 investment proposals
The Morning: Colombo Port City (CPC) has received 17 investment proposals which currently await regulations to be in place to initiate work at the financial city, State Minister of Investment Promotion Dilum Amunugama said.
Speaking in Parliament recently presenting the Regulations for planning clearing and development permits for authorized persons within the Colombo Port City, the state minister said that Port City has received a total of 17 investment proposals which are waiting for the regulations to be approved to start work.
“After passing the regulations today at Parliament, there will be a huge change because after approving them (regulations), the 17 investors can start engaging with the Port City,” he said.
However, he said that there are some operational regulations that need to be approved which the Government is working on to bring to the Parliament soon.
Moreover, Amunugama said that Port City will be officially launched in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on 26 September in which the Colombo Port City name could be slightly changed to Colombo Financial City for branding purposes. “But it has not yet been finalized,” he added.
Further, responding to the state minister’s speech, Opposition MP Dr. Harsha de Silva said that rebranding Port City as Colombo Financial City should not be done as creating a financial city is not easy.
“Doing another financial Centre in between the Dubai and Singapore Financial Centers is not easy and a bankrupt country doing a financial Centre is a joke,” he said
He added that the most suitable plan would be to create a knowledge city at the Colombo Port City to provide Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence services as the port city is a special economic zone for services.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port City project is one of the country’s flagship programmers aimed at taking Sri Lanka to the next level of development. Sri Lanka is currently focused on becoming an emerging business destination in the South Asian region supported by the country’s geographical positioning in the Indian Ocean and the many trade agreements as well as trade concessions enjoyed by the country. Given Sri Lanka’s economic resilience, which has been witnessed through the years, the country is once again on a development path after facing the impact of the global pandemic and the economic crisis that followed. With many foreign businesses/investors identifying Sri Lanka’s growing business potential, there has been much interest in exploring the expanding opportunities in the country. It is in such a backdrop that investors have shown interest in exploring opportunities in the Colombo Port City project. The involvement of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron in promoting the Colombo Port City project in overseas markets is also an indication of the great business potential held by the project. Foreign businesses/investors could explore the expanding business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka as the country is showing all signs of steady growth in business potential.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20231004/Z_1 |