Dialog to invest US$ 30 m

Hiran Seniviratne

COLOMBO: Dialog Telekom Limited will invest Rs 33 billion (US $30 million) in Sri Lanka’s telecommunications and media sector.

“With heavy private sector investments like this nature Sri Lanka was able to record a 7.6 per cent economic growth this year. Eighty per cent of the economy is run by the private sector,” Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Dr Sarath Amunugama said. He was speaking at the signing of Board of Investment (BoI) agreement with Dialog Telecom.

He said that with the commencement of private/ public partnerships, the telecommunication sector has become a success story. Minister Amunugama said that when the state sector is monopolizing the telecommunication sector it took years to obtain a connection for the customers.

With the increase of the private/public sector partnership in the sector 30 per cent of the population has been able to own some kind of telephone. The telephony rate is growing exponentially, he said.

BoI Chairman Dhammika Perera said that telecommunication is a vital factor for the economic growth.

The substantial portion of the investment pledged by the Dialog Group will be directed at fixed line telephony and broadband services via Dialog Broadband networks (Pvt) Limited (DBN) respectively.

The investments in DBN will be directed towards the growth of CDMA based Rural Fixed Telecommunication Infrastructure, Wi Max based wireless broadband infrastructure and for the deployment of a National Fibre Optic backbone.

Investment in Asset Media will be targeted at the expansion of its Digital Satellite TV services and for the development of Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting infrastructure in Sri Lanka.

Dialog Telekom Limited Chairman Tan Sri Dato Ir Muhammad Radzi said that this investment brings Dialog’s total commitment to the Telco Sector in Sri Lanka to over US $ 800 million and emphasized their commitment to and confidence in the Sri Lankan market.

He said that Sri Lanka has good investor friendly policies. Dialog Telekom has already delivered impressive results and with this additional investment we intend to fulfil the objective of playing an ever-bigger role in not just the country’s telecommunication landscape, he said.