Sri Lanka’s economy should be driven through investment and FDI: Eran Wickramaratne

Apr 01, 2015 (LBO) - Sri Lanka’s new government plans to drive the economy forward through investment and foreign direct investment (FDI) unlike the previous regimes strategy of public investment and foreign debt, deputy Minister of highways, higher education and investments promotions, Eran Wickramaratne said. “Clearly our government’s view is that the future of this economy will be driven through investment and FDI unlike in the previous regime who built it on public invest and foreign debt strategy,” Wickramaratne said. “The theme of change is good governance because when you have this, you have good investment coming in.

” Sri Lanka’s 100 day administration has taken a back seat in setting a foreign direct investment goal for this year after authorities failed to meet their targets in the recent past. Inconsistent tax policies and tax holidays granted for certain businesses even without accessing projects have led to concerns of inconsistency with regard to some legitimate investors.

When compared with Asian countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, our foreign investments are very low. In 2014 FDI increased by 9.2 per cent from 84 million US dollars to one billion US dollars according to statistics from the Central Bank’s annual report while FDI in 2013 declined by 2.7 per cent from a year earlier to 916 million US dollars. It was reported that Sri Lanka had 1.

4 billion US dollars in FDIs last year but according to the international way of computing investments, it was reduce to one billion US dollars following the foreign debt component from the actual investment being reduced.