By Imsha Iqbal in The Morning, Mar 30, 2023
Despite the decades-long diplomatic and trade ties between the countries since 1952, Japanese businesses currently have lost confidence in Sri Lanka due to the abrupt and arbitrary policy changes that have been made by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), says the Ambassador for Japan in Sri Lanka Mizukoshi Hideaki.

Ambassador Hideaki stated: “On the governance and transparency of the economic policies, in the past, there have been very frequent changes of policies that have caused the loss of trust by Japanese businesses.”

He made these remarks during the Q and A session of The Ceylon Motor Traders’ Association (CMTA) stakeholder meeting last morning (29) responding to the question raised by the moderator of the session on Japan’s outlook on the Sri Lankan economy and the island’s economic revival.

He further emphasised that other than the improvement of policies related to rooting up corruption and narrowing of the income gap, improving the efficiency of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to become investor-friendly, is looked forward to by Japan since Sri Lanka’s government permission procedures are “slow”.

“It hinders the appetite for Japanese investments,” said Ambassador Hideaki. …
https://www.themorning.lk/articles/MaLP6RFOTNATSZyeScB0