BOI briefs Indian industrialists on investment opportunities

The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka hosted a 13 member delegation from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which included some of the leading industrialists in India and briefed them on the opportunities Sri Lanka offers investors as well as the country’s rapidly improving business environment, thrust sectors for investment andincentives offered to investors.

The CII delegation was on an official visit to Sri Lanka and had met leading personalities both from the Government and private sector. The CII is one of theleading Indian chambers of commerce and Industryand have regularly visited Sri Lanka with the purpose of expanding trade and investment opportunities in the island.

Discussions with the BOI  centered on possibilities of the Indian companies investing in Sri Lanka’s automobile manufacturing sector, IT industry, energy sector projects, real estate including the development of integrated business cities, air-conditioningsector and beverages production.

The Indian delegation expressed interest in finding out more about the capacity of the BOI’s Export Processing Zones, particularly the new zonal infrastructure that is currently being expanded and developed at the Sooriyaweva and Mirijjawela, near Hambantota.

The delegation from CII included Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of CII; Rahul Bajaj, Past President of CII and Chairman of Bajaj Auto Limited; Sudhir Deoras, Deputy Chairman of CII (Eastern region) and Managing Director of TRF Limited; S. Chandrasekar, Managing Director , Bhoruka Power Corporation Ltd.; V.K. Matthews, Chairman CII, Kerala State Council and Executive Chairman IBS Software Services; Sunil Duggal, CEO Dabur India Ltd.; Satish Jamdar, Managing Director, Blue Star Limited; Sunil Wadhwa, Chief Executive Officer, IL&FS Energy Development Company; Shub Shrivastava, Chief (Global Business and Strategy), The Tata Power Company Ltd.; Sangeeta Prasad, Chief Executive Officer, Mahindra World City; Sujith Haridas, Regional Director(southern region) CII; and Manish Mohan, Director and Head South Asia, CII.

The delegation was accompanied by Manish, Counsellor (Economic and Commercial) and S.P. Sapra, Second Secretary (Economic and Commercial) of the Indian High Commission.

BOI was represented by Gowri Rajapaksa, Executive Director (Investment), Vidharshan Fernando, Director (Promotion and Mega Projects), Dilip S. Samarasinghe, Director (Media and Publicity) and W.U.K.M.A. Wijayakulathilake, Director (Investment).