President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has called for urgent measures to attract greater foreign and domestic investment into Sri Lanka’s mineral sector and to remove the institutional and regulatory barriers keeping investors out, Ada Derana reported.

He made the remarks at a discussion held at the Presidential Secretariat on Monday afternoon on developing the mineral industry in line with the export-oriented National Mineral Policy 2026. Officials from the Sri Lanka Mineral Sands Association and the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau took part, according to a President’s Media Division statement.

Investment promotion emerged as a key priority in efforts to turn the sector into a significant contributor to export earnings and economic growth, the PMD said. The discussion focused particularly on the difficulties investors face in dealing with government institutions, including delays in obtaining mining licences.

From raw material to processing

The meeting’s stated purpose goes beyond removing friction for investors.

Discussions covered systematic mechanisms for exploration, extraction and downstream value addition of the country’s unexploited mineral wealth, EconomyNext reported. Participants identified an urgent need to move from exporting unrefined raw materials to domestic processing.

Dissanayake acknowledged shortcomings in the existing regulatory framework and said institutional coordination must improve and maximum transparency be maintained to attract both domestic and foreign capital, according to EconomyNext.

Hiru News and the Daily Mirror reported the same meeting. Hiru said the discussion also covered infrastructure development, concessions for investors and the promotion of research and development.

The concerns around the push

EconomyNext was the only outlet to set the announcement against criticism of the sector, and its account is the one that gives the policy a context the PMD statement does not.

It reported that past attempts to overhaul the mineral sector were held back by policy inconsistency and weak regulatory oversight, which allowed ilmenite, rutile and high-purity quartz to leave the country with minimal processing — the same pattern the new policy is meant to end.

Environmental advocates, it reported, argue that expanding inland and coastal mining has to be paired with strict ecological safeguards to prevent habitat destruction and coastal erosion.

The three other outlets carried the PMD statement without that framing. None of the four reported a response from the government to the environmental concerns.

What has not been reported

No outlet gave the value of the mineral sector’s current exports, an investment target, or a timeline for the licensing reforms. None named the licences at issue or the institutions responsible for the delays, and none said whether the National Mineral Policy 2026 has been gazetted or what legislative change, if any, would be required to implement it.

None reported who else attended beyond the two named bodies, whether any specific deposit or project was discussed, or whether the government intends to open new areas to mining.

Sources