ECONOMYNEXT – Attempts to re-expropriate assets of Sri Lanka’s privatized commercial plantations on the pretext of being under-utilized will undermine property rights and discourage investors, officials and analysts said.
Sri Lanka’s privatized plantations which are on 50-year lease have only 70,000 hectares of land.
Plantations are an emblematic case in Sri Lanka’s post-independence economic decline where they were expropriated from foreign and domestic owners under ‘land reform’.
Many foreign owners were given land in African nations like Kenya where they set up tea plantations.
Sri Lanka state is now bankrupt and the President Ranil Wickremesinghe is trying to attract foreign investment into privatizations.
“When you give a signal to the market that the government is going to expropriate land it will further undermine the investor confidence because one of the main factors the investors are looking at is the establishment of property rights and in Sri Lanka,” Dhananath Fernando, Chief Executive of Colombo based Advocata Institute of free market think tank said.
Expropriation Fears
Renewed expropriation fears arose after reports that a proposal had been given to the cabinet to take-over so-called ‘under-utilized’ land of privatized plantations.
Sri Lanka in 2011 expropriated a number of private properties including publicly listed Pelwatte Sugar and Hotel Developers, claiming the land was ‘under-utilized’.
Land of…
