June 07, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has received 236 million US dollars in foreign direct investments in the first quarter of 2011, up 160 percent from a year earlier, led by tourism, the state investment promotion agency said. Hong Kong based Shangri-La group which bought land in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo and Hambantota in the South were the top contributor in the first quarter.
Utilities brought the next highest investments of 62 million dollars led by telecoms. Seven million dollars flowed in to the apparel sector.
Investments smaller than 3 million dollars would no longer get tax breaks but can get BOI support, the agency said.
In the quarter exports by BOI companies increased to 1.64 billion US dollars from 1.3 billion dollars a year earlier, with apparel sector revenues up 27 percent to 994 million dollars from 781 million dollars a year earlier.
Update II The Board of Investment said Sri Lanka was on track to get one billion dollars this year.
“The strong performance was helped by investments in the dynamic tourism sector which accounted for 132 million US dollars,” chairman and director general of the BOI, Jayampathi Bandaranayake said in a statement.
He said the agency expected