Sri Lanka Telecom in $415 mln ICT investment agreement with BOI
View(s):Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) said on Wednesday that it has received flagship status from the Board of Investment (BOI) after committing a total investment of US$415.44 million to undertake telecommunication, information technology, broadband and infrastructure expansion in the country within the next two years.
Nimal Welgama, Chairman - SLT Group and Dr. Lakshman Jayaweera, Chairman - BOI of Sri Lanka exchanging the multi-million USD ICT investment agreement while Lalith De Silva, Group CEO of SLT, Mahesh Athukorale, Company Secretary of SLT (extreme left) and pali Mahamithawa, GM - Financial Planning & Investor Relations (behind) looks on.
Dr. Lakshman Jayaweera, Chairman – BOI of Sri Lanka and Nimal Welgama, the Chairman – SLT Group signed the agreement on behalf of the two organizations in the presence of Lalith De Silva, the Group CEO of SLT, according to a company announcement.
This investment agreement will encompass the expansion of multi-faceted national ICT infrastructures: Internet Data Centres (IDCs), Voice Services, Enterprise and Wholesale Services, High Speed Broadband Services, Peo TV expansion, Fibre Optic Network expansion, 4G LTE expansion, International Connectivity, Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and Wi-Fi Wireless Broadband projects. The SLT group has invested over $1.3 billion in telecommunication service provisioning since coming under the BOI umbrella in 2007, which includes the total value commitment of this new agreement; and the overall investment the group has made throughout its entire 150 year span which is enormous in terms of magnitude.
Since obtaining BOI approval in 2007, SLT has invested in excess of Rs. 57 billion/ $485 million to improve the country’s telecommunication infrastructure.
Nimal Welgama, the Chairman, SLT Group said, “Investments made by SLT towards the country for a period of over 150 years have placed Sri Lanka as well as our country’s entire ICT sector at the forefront of the region by facilitating multi-faceted ICT solutions to the nation, and helping to increase its strategic geographical advantage”.
Dr. Lakshman Jayaweera, the Chairman – BOI of Sri Lanka said, “We are happy to see the initiatives taken by Sri Lanka Telecom to change the techno – landscape of the country, and play a major role as the facilitator of investments into our country and I take my hat off to the SLT team. We need this kind of development to take our country’s economy to US$ 100 billion GDP within the next couple of years in line with GoSL’s economic goals. We believe that major development like this will take this country to the next stage of development”.