Land for Sri Lanka Volkswagen assembly plant secured: BOI

Apr 11, 2016 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Board of Investment has helped to secure land for the setting up of a Volkswagen assembly plant, the investment promotion agency said. "Through the successful facilitation by Upul Jayasuriya, chairman of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka and his officials, working closely with the Ministry of Lands, land in the Kuliyapitiya area was secured for setting up the Volkswagen assembly plant in Sri Lanka," the BOI said.





"This land will be taken over by the BOI and would be formally handed over by the investment promotion agency to M/s Senok Automobile (Pvt) Ltd., for the assembly of cars manufactured by Volkswagen AG, the renowned German Company.





" The agreement to assemble cars was earlier signed by Jayasuriya and Noel Selvanayagam, president of Senok Automombiles. A BOI Section 17 Agreement, the investor will assemble vehicles in the 1000 cc to 2000 cc category and these vehicles will be diesel powered and include passenger cars, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV), Multi Utility Vehicles (MUV) or commercial vehicles. Initially these vehicles would be marketed locally for a period of 3 years and thereafter to overseas markets, according to the project.



There is also potential to export petrol/electric/ hybrid vehicles built without the concessions given for assembling diesel vehicles.

"The total value of this project is an investment of 26.

5 million dollars of which 21.5 million will be invested in fixed assets within a period of 24 months.



" BOI is very keen to attract other leading automobile manufacturers into the country as the industry creates opportunities for the creation of local component manufacturers that can supply the building of a complex product such as passenger car, it said. "The uniqueness of the project would be the inflows of German advanced automobile technology into the country and creating of job opportunities for the local youth.





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