Despite the negative economic sentiments the Board of Investment approved export companies have brought in increased revenue of USD 250 million in the first three months of 2022 to Sri Lanka.
The total revenue earned by all 14 BOI zones and other BOI related companies last year was around USD 1,400 million in the first three months of 2021 and this year it has increased to around USD 1,650 million. This is a 11% growth as against the previous year. Secretary Free Trade Zone Manufactures’ Association Dhammika Fernando said that the big BOI based companies have not witnessed major drop in orders and this trend is expected to continue. “We predict that by the end of 2022 we will be able to bring in around USD 1 billion more than the previous year’s total earnings from BOI enterprise.``
He however said that the SME sector is witnessing a dip in orders especially in the apparel and some other sectors and he attributed this to import restrictions, high freight charges and logistic issues. Meanwhile FTZMA President, Jatinder Biala said that there are plans/talks to increase the electricity traffic by three times to big uses like them and this will create a major negative impact to the exporters as they will lose their competitive edge in the global market. BOI enterprises are the only export sector that brings in the most amounts of much needed foreign currencies to the country which amounts to about 70-80% of the country’s foreign income from the industry.
“As a trade chamber, we are very much conscious of the current predicament of the country and we accept that a reasonable revision of tariff is needed, but we cannot agree with the three to four folds of increase of bills as mentioned in the media.”
BOI enterprises also are currently going through a tough time in continuing their operation in the country and the difference in ROE is negatively impacting their business entities, particularly the effect cascades down the entire supply chain. Secondly, the installation of Solar PV Panels on the rooftops of manufacturing plants is indeed a good idea to implement however such power does not harness even half of the required energy to rely upon due to the limitation of roof capacities and lack of availability plus the exorbitantly high cost.
Therefore we believe that the intended proposal for an increase in electricity should take into consideration many aspects, particularly from the foreign direct investment facilitation viewpoint and such revision should match with neighboring countries.
“We have written to the Minister of Power Kanchana Wijesekera in this regard as an unprecedented electricity hike will kill a USD 5 billion annual revenue generating industry.”
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