BOI approves Aban’s Seeduwa IT logistics park
The Board of Investment (BOI) has approved a proposal by the Abans Group to set up an IT logistics park on its 18 acre leased-out land at Seeduwa, officials said. The land lease was to be revoked by the BOI as no development had taken place on the property, they said. Earlier Abans was expected to set up a cycling assembly plant on these premises. “Abans will be starting work on this facility for IT logistics sometime this year,” an official said.
BOI Chairman Upul Jayasuriya told the Business Times last year that leases on lands that aren’t being used will be revoked by the BOI and handed over through a competitive and transparent bidding to parties that were willing to start projects in the short term.
“We found that there’re many companies who secured lands on long lease from the BOI and ‘not done anything’ on them. Now we’re planning to revoke these leases,” he said at the time. According to him, some lands were given more than 10 years ago and they are idling without any development. “There are others who would want to develop on them. We want to give them a chance.” Some officials said that BOI, upon research saw that most lands that are idling were secured by powerful /politically connected companies during the past.