Sri Lanka FDI to pick up with hotels and port: Treasury secretary

Mar 24, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's foreign direct investments will pick up with planned projects in ports and hotels valued at 500 million dollars each, finance ministry secretary P B Jayasundera said.





He said a concession agreement has been signed in the Colombo port for a new terminal that will need 500 million US dollars to build.

"That is a 500 million dollar private foreign investment.

A private foreign investment," he told a business forum in Colombo, organized by Sri Lanka's software and services companies (SLASSCOM).

"People ask 'Where is the investment?

' That is the investment."

The terminal will be built by China Merchant Holdings, a Chinese state firm, and Colombo listed Aitken Spence group.

Jayasundera said investments at the port alone will be equal to the annual foreign investments realized a year between 1990 to 2010.

Sri Lanka has still not published a foreign direct investment figure for 2010 but it is expected to be around 300 to 400 million US dollars, lower than the 600 million dollars achieved a year earlier.

The state investment promotion agency is expecting about billion dollars in FDI in 2011.

"In addition new FDI is coming to the hotel sector,