Govt To Do Away With Outdated Laws To Make Lanka Investor Friendly
The government will facilitate upcoming ventures/establishments by amending out dated laws to make Sri Lanka an investor friendly nation, the focus of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s vision, Power and Energy Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has said. The Minister yesterday expressed confidence that the joint venture ANTE LECO would further contribute to the country’s economy with the removal of obsolete laws that were a stumbling block.
The joint venture factory aims to produce nearly 400,000 smart electricity meters annually. Amaraweera said that the establishment of the factory was a result of a bold decision taken by the incumbent Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa earlier when he was the President. Among many bold decisions taken by him from 2010 to 2014 were the construction of Norochcholai coal power plants and the Upper Kotmale hydro power plant. Had they not been built, the Minister said the country would have been in the dark.
ANTE LECO is a joint venture between Sri Lanka and China that commenced in 2011.
The Minister was of the opinion that electric meters hitherto used to supply electricity to homes and various institutions could cause various irregularities, and meter readers could face many problems. Thus, ANTE-LECO Metering (Pvt) Ltd in Bandaragama, a subsidiary of LECO, has taken measures to introduce a new smart electric meter with a range of facilities to overcome that situation. Amaraweera declared open the newly built Wave Soldering Plant there last week. The company produces 2,000 new smart electric meters a day and has already sold 64,000 smart meters here.
Plans were underway to launch its second stage to introduce those meters to international markets and thereby facilitate the flow of foreign exchange into the country, said the top management of the company. Chathura Jayawardene, Director of ANTE LECO said that the KEMA Institute in the Netherlands had awarded the highest calibration for the smart electric meters manufactured by the joint venture.