“Govt. to call int’l bids to sell shares of seven SOEs”

“The government has decided to sell government shares in several institutions”, said State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya.

These include SriLankan Airlines, Telecom, Insurance Corporation, Grand Hyatt, Hilton Hotel, Litro Company and Lanka Hospital.

“Sri Lanka will go ahead and State owned enterprises (SOES) will be re-structured in multiple ways and work on the sale of them will be done in a bid to make them more productive.”

He said that they will call for international proposals (EOI) and (RFP) towards this and said that the total process will be done in a very transparent manner.

“We will also appoint an independent and credible company with international marketing connections to carry on this process.”

He said that funds obtained from this process would be plough in to develop the economy.

Commenting on some of the other state owned enterprises, he said that in 2021, a sum of Rs 367 billion had been given by the Treasury to maintain the 430 entities and the restructuring process has not materialized yet he said adding that it will be a priority this year.

The total loss of the key 52 SOEs was Rs. 726.9 billion for the first eight months of 2022 of which 31 SOEs recorded a profit before tax of Rs. 134.9 billion and the balance, 21 SOEs reported a net loss of Rs. 861.7 billion.