The “ViYASA” National Business Facilitation Centre (NBFC) opens on Tuesday, set up under the Presidential Secretariat to strip out the administrative and regulatory obstacles that slow businesses and investors down.
The centre was established on the initiative of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake with the aim of improving the business environment and speeding up processes in the industrial and investment sectors.
What it does
The NBFC is intended to resolve problems businesses run into when dealing with government institutions, both while setting up and once operating, and to coordinate with the relevant agencies on the approvals and services a project needs. In practice that makes it a single point of contact sitting above the individual line agencies rather than a new regulator of its own.
It is located at Building C-80, Hector Kobbekaduwa Mawatha, Colombo 7, and is headed by Seevali Arukgoda, Senior Additional Secretary to the President and a former Director General of Customs.
The opening ceremony is being held under the patronage of Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando, Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning, and Sunil Handunneththi, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, with Secretary to the President Dr. Nandika Sanath Kumanayake attending. The centre’s website, nbfc.presidentsoffice.gov.lk, is being launched at the same event.
Background
Cabinet approved the creation of a national business facilitation centre in August, and Tuesday’s launch converts that decision into an operating office. Delays in clearances, licensing and inter-agency coordination have been a standing complaint from investors, and the government has framed the centre as its answer to them.
What the NBFC can actually compel other agencies to do — as opposed to coordinate — has not been set out publicly, and no service standards or turnaround targets have been announced.
