Colombo, Jan 29 (newsin.asia) – Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Sri Lanka reached an all-time high of 1.63 billion US dollars in 2017, doubling from the US 802 million dollars achieved during the previous year, the country’s investment bureau said in a statement Monday.
The Board of Investment (BOI), the agency tasked with promoting and facilitating FDIs, reported that the numbers achieved in 2017 was the highest ever surpassing the US 1.61 billion dollar mark in 2014, with solid growth across key sectors.
“The strong growth is a direct consequence of the government’s reorientation of economic policy towards investment and export driven growth, rather than debt-funded public infrastructure spending,” the BOI said.
Among the highest growth sectors were export-oriented manufacturing and services which includes tourism and IT and infrastructure.
The highest FDI came from China, followed by Hong Kong, India and Singapore.
Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade, Malik Samarawickrama said that while Sri Lanka had achieved strong FDI results in 2017, the country had only scratched the surface of its full potential.
“This is not a time for complacency but renewed focus to use the momentum to strengthen reforms to improve our Ease of Doing Business ranking, and efforts to attract high-quality investors from countries we have renewed bilateral relationships with,” the Minister said.
He added the country’s target was to achieve US 5 billion dollars in FDI by 2020 and was confident of achieving US 2.5 billion dollars of FDI in 2018.
In order to facilitate FDI, the new Inland Revenue Act provides accelerated investment allowances over and above normal depreciation until companies recover their total fixed investment. The foreign exchange regime too has been liberalized to improve the investment climate via the new Foreign Exchange Act, the BOI said.
