Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) and Board of Investment (BOI) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance the cooperation between the two agencies to reduce time and costs for foreign and domestic investors by streamlining the SLTDA and BOI investment approval processes.

The signing took place at a formal ceremony with the Chairperson of SLTDA Mrs.Kimarli Fernando and Director General of BOI Mrs. Champika Malalgoda formalising the agreement on behalf of the two institutions in the presence of Susantha Rathnayake, Chairman of BOI.

SLTDA is currently in the process of streamlining the approval process and the facilitation services provided by Investor Relations Unit (IRU). The objective of the process is to provide accurate and reliable information required by the investors in the sector and to facilitate approvals from all relevant government agencies within a minimum time frame. The above streamlining is supported by USAID-SAIL (Supporting Accelerated Investment in Sri Lanka) Project.

Board of Investment’s (BOI) key objectives include encouraging and promoting investment, specifically Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), diversify the sources of foreign exchange earnings, and increase export earnings, promote innovation, adoption of new technologies, generate new employment and promote Sri Lanka as a Trading Hub.

As per the Tourism Act No. 38 of 2005, SLTDA’s Investment Relations Unit (IRU) specifically looks after the tourism investments and the BOI collaborates in providing incentives and support with all relevant procedures to implement/bring down the investment to the country within the relevant regulations. The collaboration will be strengthened through this MoU to provide an efficient, effective and hassle-free investment facilitation process for tourism investments.

So far, SLTDA has signed MOU’s with Urban Development Authority (UDA), Coastal Conservation Department (CCD) and now Board of Investment (BOI) to streamline the tourism investment process and awaiting green light from Central Environmental Authority (CEA), Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Department of Archaeology, Forest Department & Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

To simplify the entire process, SLTDA has initiated a common application for investors, including all requirements of the key line agencies which is set to launch by March 2020.

“The common application will help fasten the investor approval process in Tourism. It is critical that other line agencies support Sri Lanka Tourism in providing their approval so the common application could be implemented. The investors can upload the common application to our website and get connected to other line agencies for faster approvals in the future and have an online tracking of pending approvals” State Minister of Tourism Promotions Arundika Fernando shared.