- Effectiveness of Budget 2022 in terms of enhancing much-needed foreign direct and portfolio investment under spotlight by top panel
The first physical forum to discuss the Budget 2022 will be hosted by the Daily FT and the Colombo University MBA Alumni Association today from 9 to 11 a.m. at The Kingsbury.
The event will also be livestreamed via Daily FT web site and FT and Daily Mirror social media apart from PeoTV.
Today’s forum will exclusively focus on how effective the Budget 2022 has been in terms of spurring much needed foreign direct and portfolio investor interest and make Sri Lanka more competitive and attractive.
Highlighting the important multinational companies’ (MNCs) perspectives, today’s event is set to be the first hybrid post-Budget forum (in physical forum as well as streamed live online). With an eminent panel of leaders, it will highlight views of several international companies, including Standard Chartered Bank (which is also the Strategic Partner of the forum), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), A. Baur and Company, leading retailer SPAR International, CEAT, and Airtel.
Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal will keynote the forum, which will also have insights from PwC Sri Lanka on the 2022 Budget’s taxation policies, and SC Securities Ltd., highlighting the impact on the capital market.
Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa’s 2022 Budget laid heavy emphasis on attracting FDIs, boosting exports, and setting up multiple hubs as well as undertaking reforms for speedier facilitation of foreign investors.
It outlined several initiatives to boost much-needed Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) whilst highlighting some of the issues. The new moves, their effectiveness, as well as the challenges will specifically come under the spotlight at today’s forum.
In his Budget 2022 speech, Finance Minister Rajapaksa said: “We have more than three decades of experience in attracting FDIs to the country, but it was always a challenge. FDIs flowed into the country as investments into free trade zones and other strategic investments. Nevertheless, we were unable to expand it as expected.”
Noting that Sri Lanka has been able to make some progress in FDIs over the past year and a half, Basil said investment projects valued at around $ 1 billion have commenced.
He proposed to carry out an in-depth analysis and review of the procedures followed by the Board of Investment in attracting FDIs to Sri Lanka. He also proposed to expeditiously look into whether conditions currently imposed to facilitate the attraction of FDIs should be relaxed and to identify suitable methods and formulate a program for this purpose.
