Brand Sri Lanka as a place to make investments, says local IFC chief
Sri Lanka being a developing country needs to be branded for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to come into the country. It’s only a relatively small group of countries that have provided investments so far and that can increase with time.
These comments were made by Adam Sack, Country Manager for Sri Lanka from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to the Business Times on the sidelines of the lecture held at the Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) in Colombo last week. The presentation was based on the topic ‘How to attract FDIs’.
Mr. Sack noted that the members of the government and private sector are very active in getting the word out about Sri Lanka to the foreign countries. That should certainly be encouraged along with passing the right policies and having good case studies. Together it helps to build brand Sri Lanka as a place to make investments.
He also said he was happy to see Chinese investors building the Southern and Katunayake expressways. It is an example of what can be done with technology and the capital investment made in Sri Lanka that helps address Sri Lanka’s needs. There is a lot of opportunity for many other investing countries to come in and contribute so that Sri Lanka will have a broad base of countries, he added.
When he was questioned as to which sector needs more FDI, he said that the best judge to decide on it is the FDI itself. People can see the opportunities in tourism, the infrastructure in developing agribusiness and many other sectors. People who decide are the ones with money, the foreign investors themselves, he stressed.
Meanwhile speaking to a group of professionals from different sectors in the country at the OPA, Mr. Sack said, “The direction of FDI has changed in a very important way; it used to be from rich countries to poor countries, but today FDI flows among developing countries.” The public sector is not going to be the engine of growth to provide jobs in the future. It is very important to note that no country has moved to middle income or higher income status in isolation, he added.
Sri Lanka needs to focus on the total factor productivity. If ‘you’ want to increase the total factor productivity ‘you’ have to increase the FDI. A 10 per cent increase in FDI leads to more than a 1 per cent increase in total factor productivity, he noted.