Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxemburg and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha has called on Governments of EU Member States to revise travel advisories as the LTTE no longer posed a security threat.

He also called on them to encourage trade and investment in Sri Lanka to facilitate economic development and the restoration of normalcy in the newly liberated areas in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

Addressing a 3-day investment seminar in Brussels last week, Aryasinha said this was the first overseas investment forum after armed forces’ triumph over the LTTE. Noting that with the ending of 30-year conflict, the main impediment to Sri Lanka reaching its full potential had been removed, he said.

"Sri Lankans are keen to shift gears and move on focusing on development and bringing peace and economic prosperity to the country. The resilience the Sri Lankan economy showed in the past navigating through stormy seas would hold it in good stead as it entered calmer waters."

Addressing the Business Forum attended by a cross section of leading business personalities involved in the tourism, ports and logistics, confectionary, banking and finance, light engineering, mining, agriculture and gem and jewellery sectors, Executive Director Promotion & Mega Projects of the BOI Shivan de Silva, outlined the reasons as to why Sri Lanka was an attractive investment destination and briefed the audience of specific investment opportunities in Sri Lanka. With Free Trade Agreements with both India and Pakistan, Sri Lanka provided investors openings to the vast market of the Sub Continent. He also emphasized the potential investment opportunities on a Public - Private Partnership basis that would be available following the opening up of the Eastern and Northern Provinces for development after decades. He said additional incentives to attract investors to these areas will be announced shortly. Silva was emphatic that the investment sector was poised for take off. He noted that a report released by the HSBC Global Research on 25 May 2009 had forecast that there would be a rush to invest in Sri Lanka as there are great opportunities- tourism, export of software and IT enabled services such as IT related business process outsourcing (BPO), and manufacturing being the key sectors ripe for Foreign Direct Investment.