Wednesday, February 13, 2008

M&M to set up $ 100 mn IT centre in Sri Lanka

Mahindra and Mahindra on Tuesday entered into an agreement with the Board of Investments of Sri Lanka to set up a 100 million dollar IT-ITeS centre in the Economic Processing Zone at Katunayake near here.

The MoU was signed between M&M Executive Director Arun Nanda and Sri Lankan Minister of Enterprise and Investment Sarath Amunugama, in the presence of visiting Indian Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh.

The centre, to be developed on 53 acre land, would generate 25,000 IT jobs in the island country, Nanda said.

Besides the IT unit from M&M, efforts would be made to rope in top national and global clientale of the Indian company into the Sri Lankan facility, he said.

The work for the IT centre will start within the next six months, he said, adding that the job opportunities provided by the centre would also have a spillover effect on employment in other areas.

Board of Investments is a statutory agency responsible for promoting and facilitating foreign investments in Sri Lanka.

Jairam Ramesh announced that besides the IT centre, the Mahindra group has also decided to set up a manufacturing facility over 900 acre of land at Trincomalee in Eastern Sri Lanka.

He said the agreement to this effect will be reached soon.

Speaking on the occasion, Amunugama said while the IT project will provide employment opportunities, the Trincomalee manufacturing base would act as an integrating point for Sri Lankan communities as this eastern province had equal ratio of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim population.

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