LOLC to expand outside Sri Lanka

Lanka Orix Leasing Company Ltd (LOLC) has made a strategic decision to expand its operations outside Sri Lanka to derive synergetic benefits in the areas of micro financing, rural and agro sector development.

“Having this in mind, the company carefully evaluated opportunities available in the region where expertise could be extracted to develop the identified sectors in Sri Lankan,” Ishara Nanayakkara, Deputy Chairman, LOLC has said in his 2006-07 annual statement.

LOLC acquired a 17.91 percent stake in PRASAC, a Cambodian micro financing institution along with four other institutions, Dragon Capital, a prominent investment bank in Vietnam, FMO, BIO (Belgian International Organisation) and OIKO Credit an American micro finance lending institution last year.

Nanayakkara has said that the company’s focus is moving towards rural development via micro financing tools that will not require collateral support. “We see this approach as the only way to develop rural enterprises and provide support to the rural community who today are largely bereft of such support and have few avenues of bettering themselves,” he has further said.

He has said that this investment in PRASAC yields synergies for the company in the areas of rural and micro financing, “We feel will be invaluable for the execution of our long-term strategy of contributing to the economic development of the micro, rural and agro sectors.” The company is looking at selective expansion further into the South-East Asian and Far Eastern regions.