The traditional five year tax holiday will be replaced with a more rationalised scheme to raise the quality of investments, BOI chief Lakshman Watawala told businessmen on Wednesday.
The new scheme will grade tax holidays according to employment and investment levels, but will also feature a negative list unlike before, to protect certain local industries.
Large projects like power generation, industrial estates, highways, ports, airports, public transport and water services will get a 6-15 year tax break.
Minimum investment levels for this tax group will range from 12.5 million dollars to 100 million dollars in some categories.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) - a 100 million dollar industry locally has been given a 3-12 year tax holiday, with special incentives for BPO training centres.
But offshore investments will also be graded on employment generated ranging from 100 to 2,000 people as well as a minimum investment of 150,000 dollars.
Other large scale pro