European chamber organises Lankan stakeholder forum on attracting investments

Stakeholders from both the public and private sector came together last week to discuss and find ways on how to improve foreign direct investment in Sri Lanka in an event organised by the Ministry of Investment Promotions in collaboration with the European Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka.

Participants at this dialogue included Faizer Mustapha, Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion, officials of the Board of Investment, Roshan Lyman from the Delegation of the European Union to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, representatives of EU Member States, representative from the Small and Medium Enterprises Chamber and European companies who have already invested in Sri Lanka or doing business in Sri Lanka.

“It was recognized at this dialogue that a vital component of Sri Lanka's investment promotion strategy should be to retain the existing foreign investments. It was also agreed that in order to retain such investments it was vital that there is a regular dialogue between the Ministry of Investment Promotion, the European Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, the current investors and other line ministries and government institutions so that the Ministry of Investment Promotion will understand better the constraints faced by the existing investors and would be able to address them,” a media release from the European Chamber said.

Mr. Mustapha said that since taking up office he has been continuously working towards attracting foreign investments. “I believe that there should be increased focus on re-establishing our traditional links. How can this be achieved? Working collectively not in isolation! Firstly we must satisfy the investors who are here. Investment is by word of mouth and that is the strongest form of investment promotion. I thought we should have a dialogue and continuously address your issues. Sri Lanka has and will remain committed to retaining foreign investment in the country,” he was quoted as saying.

Mr. Lyman said that some of the common expectations of European Investors in any investment location in the world are - consistency in the policy framework; protection from expropriation; free availability of raw materials in the investment location; proximity to key markets and privilege access to such markets, and finally as the majority of the EU companies are SMEs they tend to choose investment locations that encourage SME investments.

“Therefore as long as these issues are addressed by countries, European investors will have confidence in investing in such locations. The fact that Sri Lanka has a Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with India and is looking at a possible FTA with China would attract those investors who would like to export to these bigger markets using the FTA's,” he said.