Why Sri Lanka
The Perfect Growing Conditions for Profit
Sri Lanka, famous for its plantation economy, enjoys near perfect weather conditions and extremely favourable supply and demand characteristics, creating the optimum location for cultivating our forestry and agricultural investments. There are many reasons why investing in timber commodities in Sri Lanka makes sense.
* Alok and Giles in the Maize fields at Welikanda
Teak for example is an ideal species to cultivate due to Sri Lanka’s temperate weather conditions. Teak flourishes in the rainy seasons and then during the dry seasons, the trees shed their leaves and their growth slows, allowing the wood to harden. This alternate weather pattern is essential to produce high grade teak with superior grain and density, ensuring weather hardiness. This superior quality can be evidenced by the golden brown colouration of the tree’s bark in our plantations - exactly what the industrial buyers are looking for.
There are many other reasons why Sri Lanka is such a hot bed of investment activity right now. The Sri Lankan market was the second best performing market in the world for the calendar year 2009. The All Share Index appreciated 125% and Milanka Price Index appreciated 136%.
Today many investment experts are predicting a bright future for Sri Lanka, including HSBC Private Bank, which has already tipped Sri Lanka to become the “Hong Kong of India”, a statement backed up by the country’s impressive growth of 7% in the last year alone. Other major reasons to invest into Sri Lanka include:
- Proximity to India: Sri Lanka lies 31km (19 miles) south east of India, the world’s second-fastest-growing major economy.
- A World Class Shipping Port: Sri Lanka’s deep-sea port facility in the capital Colombo is one of the busiest in the world, ranking among the top 35. The port is the jewel in the crown as the southern tip of India does not have deep-sea port capability. China is investing circa $2 Bn into further development of ports in Sri Lanka.
- Worlds busiest Shipping Lanes: 13 miles from the south coast of Sri Lanka lies one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world with 10,000 ships passing per annum. Sri Lanka provides a strategic naval link between the West and South East Asia.
- Population: 3.5 Billion people live in Asia Pacific including the rapidly growing economies of India and China where a sizeable middle-class market is emerging, with a huge appetite for global commodities.
- Plantation Economy: Sri Lanka is famous for its plantation economy and for the production and export of tea, coffee, coconuts, rubber and cinnamon - which is native to the country.
All of these factors point towards a bright future for agricultural investment, and with legendary billionaires investors like Jim Rogers ploughing money into agricultural commodity investments, why shouldn’t you?
