The Cabinet of Ministers at its meeting on Monday approved the introduction of three new visa categories for the Colombo Port City special economic zone. 

The recommendation to introduce the new visa types was made by the Colombo Port City Economic Commission.

Sri Lanka will introduce an investor visa, a service visa and a CPC visa. The new visa types include; the ‘Investment Visa’ category for investors under the residential visa category, ‘Employment Visa’ for employees, and the ‘CPC residential property lease vendor Visa’ category for foreigners who reside within the Colombo Port City on lease.

“These new types of visa will allow investors to make preparations for their investments,” Cabinet Co-Spokesperson and Minister Bandula Gunawardena said at the post-Cabinet meeting media briefing yesterday.

However, when asked the Minister to elaborate on the visas, he said the matter is being handled by the Immigration and Emigration Department and would ask them to explain soon.

Colombo Port City is a dollarised special economic or zone which will have an international business and offer export-oriented services.

“Issuance of Visa and fulfilling other relevant activities to the investors and other relevant parties expected to arrive for various services such as international trade, navel and monitoring, financial, information technology and tourism etc. that is expected to be established in the Colombo Port City should be done by the Department of Immigration and Emigration,” a statement comprising Weekly Cabinet Decisions issued by the Government Information Department noted.

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