Sri Lanka’s 2012 foreign investment target to dip to $1.7 bn: report

June 08, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main investment promotion board is targeting 1.7 billion dollars of investments this year, lower than 2.0 billion dollars projected by the central bank, a report showed. The Indian Ocean Island attracted a record 1.0 billion dollars in investments last year, mainly from new hotel constructions, Board of Investment’s acting chairman, MM C Ferdinando told a UK-based newspaper.

"Much of this (2011) FDI (foreign direct investments) originated from countries in the Far East, which have been less affected by the current economic conditions than the West, he said.

Some 322million dollars of the 1.0 billion dollars secured in 2011, was invested in manufacturing, which represented a 101percent increase over a year earlier.

The bulk of the investment was in services and infrastructure, which increased 107percent on the previous year to 706million dollars, BOI figures showed.

"I am therefore confident that in 2012 Sri Lanka will be able to achieve about 1.7billion dollars in FDI (foreign direct investments)," he said without elaborating on the FDI discrepancies.

In its 2011 annual report, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, which tips a 2.0 billion dollar