Germany’s Volkswagen revives effort to set up vehicle manufacturing plant in Sri Lanka
View(s):Germany’s Volkswagen company has been exploring the possibility of setting up a plant to produce vehicles for export in the past few years but this had not materialised due to unspecified reasons, a statement quoted the German Ambassador in Sri Lanka as saying in Colombo recently.
This was disclosed by German ambassador Jurgen Morhard when he met Deputy Economic Affairs Minister Harsha de Silva on Monday. He told the Minister that Germany looked forward to becoming a friendly partner to Sri Lanka.
The ambassador was quoted in the embassy release as saying though Volkswagen, the second largest car maker in the world, “had strived since 2008 to start up a business to manufacture cars in Sri Lanka for export, it did not succeed for various reasons.”
Mr. de Silva had said the new administration was ready to discuss such projects which will give high paying jobs to workers and raise household income levels. The new administration has repeatedly promised investors a transparent regime with no under-the-counter payments to multiple parties. Volkswagen which rose from the ashes of World War II was one of the firms that contributed to the so-called German economic miracle of the country’s social market economy, helping not only people in the country but also those abroad become mobile.