Page 30 - CPM Sri Lanka-Chartered Manager-Sept. 2021

THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL MANAGERS OF SRI LANKA
SEPTEMBER 2021

The Port City is currently offering sailing from the
marina and an aqua golf range. Bringing Port
City to life and creating a footfall to promote Port
City and not wait until its full completion is quite
important. Therefore, multiple activities such as
go-karting, quad biking, water sports for adults
and kids, a beach club and a 2 km public beach
would be made available shortly to be patronized
by locals as well as tourists. Another exciting
addition would be the downtown duty free retail
facility that would be opened by first quarter next
year. We believe that these activities would entice
tourists to spend more time in Colombo, boosting
the city hotels, retail and F&B sectors.

MICE tourism is an area with significant potential
as MICE tourists spend as much as 2 times of the
average leisure traveler and the facility envisioned
at Port City could accommodate as much as
5,000 visitors at a time. Furthermore, Port City is
centrally located, connecting most other tourist
destinations via the national expressway network.
It is often said that local investors are sidelined
from participating in the Port City. What is
your view on this?
I do not think it is the case. Local Investors are
permitted to own up to 100% of the development In fact, one of the key priorities of this progressive
within Port City, however the required legislation is to attract local corporates who have
development capital would have to be raised setup their regional offices and headquarters
offshore in foreign currency. They could invest in overseas to relocate to Sri Lanka and thereby
land in LKR and also purchases condominiums. to reduce the foreign currency outflow and
The objective of the Port City is to attract foreign promote inflows. We believe that the Port City
currency inflows to the country and I am sure SEZ law makes adequate provisions to improve
the Government wants to discourage any ease of doing business, mitigate the currency
undue arbitrage and any leakages in terms of depreciation risk and promote transactions with
taxes, foreign exchange etc. Local investors are rest of the world by permitting it in any designated
encouraged to enter into partnerships with foreign foreign currency, coupled with Sri Lanka’s low
investors and financiers to attract capital into Sri cost of doing business would make an attractive
Lanka. proposition to relocate.

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