Some 207 UK companies, equal to US$ 429 million (Rs. 48.5 billion) worth of investments, operate in Sri Lanka presently, according to Acting British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Mark Gooding. He made this comment at this week's ribbon cutting of the expanded local mint operations of UK-based currency printer De La Rue, which was rolled out due to an additional investment of US$ 30 million (Rs. 3.4 billion). Company officials also indicated that they were attracted to Sri Lanka because of its cheap, yet skilled workforce.
Opening of the De La Rue factory |
Located in the country's Biyagama Export Processing Zone, this factory, which has a capacity of printing one billion bank notes a year, will form the hub for all the firm's currency printing for the South and South East Asian regions. The added investment also meant that staff strength was raised by 150 to now equal 350 employees. Further, while De La Rue holds 60% of the local company's shareholding, the Sri Lankan government holds the rest (40%).
A Sterling pound 561.1-million (Rs. 96.5 billion) revenue company as per Financial Year 2009/2010, De La Rue's most recent financials indicated that the majority of its worldwide operations in 2009/2010 were in currency printing while the majority of its revenues (GBP 466 million or Rs.80.2 billion) were from the UK. Further, the company also reported that it had increased its non-current assets in Sri Lanka by GBP 17.6 (Rs. 3.0 billion) from the previous year, while reducing non-current assets in the UK, Malta and other countries. De La Rue has currency printing facilities in the UK, Malta, Kenya and Sri Lanka. |
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