(c) Certain portions of this article have been extracted from Registrar of Companies (ROC), Sri Lanka, website (www.drc.gov.lk)

Constitutional Guarantee for Foreign Investment

Bilateral investment agreements supported by constitutional guarantee provides protection for foreign investment in Sri Lanka. Under article 157 of the country’s constitution, the agreement enjoys the force of law and no legislative, executive, or administrative action can be taken to contravene the provisions of a bilateral investment agreement except on grounds of national security.

Sri Lanka has Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements exist between United Kingdom ,United States of America. Germany, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Iran, India, Italy, Indonesia, Japan, The Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland .Thailand and Belgium/ Luxembourg.

Legislative Act enabling foreign investment

Section 1 of the extraordinary gazette notification No. 1232/14 dated 2002.04.19 published under the exchange control act (chapter 423 of the CLE) states,

"PERMISSION is hereby granted for the purposes of section 10, 11, 15 and subsection 5 of section 30 asapplicable of the Exchange Control Act (Chapter 423 of the CLE), for the issue and transfer of shares in acompany upto 100% of the issued capital of such company, to approved country funds, approved regionalfunds, corporate bodies incorporated outside Sri Lanka and individuals resident outside Sri Lanka(inclusive of Sri Lankans resident outside Sri Lanka), subject to the exclusions, limitations and conditionshereinafter set out."

If a private company is registered with shares issued to a foreign investor, the investor should be either get BOI approval or can be register without getting BOI approval if it is not violating the limitations under section 3 of the extraordinary gazette notification No. 1232/14.


Restrictions / Conditions

There are a number of restrictions and conditions related to Foriegn Investment in Sri Lanka. Please see Related Articles below.