📈 Sri Lanka Must Overcome Bureaucracy to Attract Global FDI

• Core FDI Challenge: Despite a strategic location in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka struggles with modest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows, losing potential investors to regional competitors like South India, Vietnam, and Indonesia due to complex governance and approval delays. • Institutional & Policy Bottlenecks: Investors face multi-agency bureaucratic hurdles, lengthy approval timelines, and policy inconsistency across political transitions, prioritizing speed, policy predictability, and efficiency over tax incentives. • Strategic Transformation for Hambantota: Currently a transshipment hub for Indian vehicle exports to Africa, Hambantota could expand into an automotive manufacturing and assembly hub using CKD/SKD kits, creating thousands of jobs and driving value-added exports. • Key Industrial & Sector Opportunities: Beyond manufacturing, Sri Lanka holds potential to become a regional hub for logistics, maritime services, renewable energy, technology, and integration into global value chains. • Proposed Governance & Institutional Reforms: - Transform the Board of Investment (BOI) into a proactive investment promoter with dedicated relationship managers and digital tracking. - Implement legally mandated, accountable timelines for project approvals. - Establish a bipartisan National Investment Strategy and integrate economic diplomacy into foreign policy.