Sri Lanka Proposes Temasek-Style "Lanka Holdings" Model for SOEs 📈

• Overview: Experts propose creating a State-owned holding company, "Lanka Holdings," under a new State Business Enterprises Management Act to professionally manage Sri Lanka's State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) based on Singapore’s Temasek model. • Core Objective: Separate the government's role as a policymaker from its role as a commercial shareholder to minimize political interference, enhance efficiency, and reduce fiscal burdens on taxpayers. • Proposed 3-Tier SOE Structure: • Tier 1 (Commercial Enterprises): Covers commercially oriented entities like telecommunications, airlines, hotels, and plantations to drive profitability, performance, and long-term value. • Tier 2 (Strategic Utilities): Manages essential services like electricity, petroleum, railways, and ports with a dual mandate of financial sustainability and transparently budgeted public-service obligations. • Tier 3 (Non-Core Entities): Merges, restructures, or winds up persistently unviable or overlapping entities following evidence-based reviews. • Key Highlights & Governance: • Independent, competency-based board appointments with zero ministerial seatings on subsidiary boards. • Enforces financial discipline via transparent dividend policies, published audited consolidated accounts, and public listing options on the CSE for select SOEs. • Strict safeguards to protect public assets, workers' rights, and retirement funds (EPF/ETF). • Implementation: Proposed phased 5-year roadmap starting with establishing legal foundations and transferring an initial batch of 10–15 commercial SOEs.