Dilum vows to break free from ‘prolonged illusion’ of one-stop-shop

BOI unveils Investor Facilitation Centre

By Sanath Nanayakkare

The one-stop- shop or single window approval system for investors coming to Sri Lanka has been a pie in the sky over a long period of time and the Investor Facilitation Centre unveiled today will not be yet another one-stop shop that doesn’t serve its purpose, Dilum Amunugama, State Minister of Investment Promotions assured in Colombo last week.

“We had several rounds of discussions with the President who is also the Minister of Investment Promotions and he suggested that we name a competent official from the BOI and the President’s Secretary would appoint him/her as an official from the President’s Office so that this official will have the authority to go and discuss with any line ministry or agency and reconcile matters relating to FDI projects without creating undue delays. This is all about accelerating and streamlining the approval process. Any line agency can express their point of view in line with stipulated regulations and can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a project proposal. But it has to be logical and swift. It shouldn’t take six months to respond to a proposal. And when there are issues relating to environment, land allocation, waste water management etc., let me know and then I will take it up at ministerial level and see if conflicting issues can be reconciled and give the project the green light or not. I request all officials from different departments and line agencies present here to support the BOI in accelerating the approval process and attract much needed FDI to the country. We might not be able to swiftly change the way of state correspondence, but the IFC will directly involve in taking the documents forward without letting them dust on someone’s desk,” he said.

The minister said that if currently stuck FDI proposals are given the green light, it will bring the country about USD 3 billion and that will be an amount of foreign exchange Sri Lanka can raise more than from the expected IMF loan.

BOI Chair Eng. Raja Ediruisuriya said that IFC alone wouldn’t be able to bring in foreign exchange. “The only thing IFC can do is coordinating with the relevant agencies for fast-tracked approval of BOI projects. We are competing with countries like Vietnam and Cambodia because they are also trying to attract FDIs. So we have to be very competitive in this sphere. Our goal is to increase the FDI share to GDP by 2.6% between 2022-2026. Our target is to realize FDIs till 2026 by about 3 billion USD per annum. We can’t meet this target unless investors are not encouraged to come in. BOI is not only a service-oriented organization. We have targets to achieve. I therefore appeal all line-agencies to help us achieve these targets and help boost the national economy. Minister Amunugama went through 77 projects and found that about 10 line agencies were holding up these projects for a couple of years or even more. We need to improve our communication and collaboration to fast-track these FDIs. The collaboration between the IFC and your line-agencies is critical at this hour to increase our foreign exchange reserves,” he pointed out.