The Cabinet has approved a proposal to invite investment proposals for a 1 acre, 1 rood and 12.4-perch plot of Urban Development Authority (UDA) land on Maradana Road, Colombo 10, on a 50-year lease basis, Cabinet spokesman Minister Nalinda Jayatissa told reporters on Tuesday.
The land is to be developed as a mixed-use project anchored on a production hub for intellectual technology products and services targeting the local market, with the involvement of Sri Lankan technologists.
A special Cabinet-appointed committee had been tasked earlier this month with identifying suitable development uses for UDA-owned land that is currently unutilised. The committee recommended the Maradana site for an information-technology and innovation-related project.
The proposal was placed before Cabinet by the Minister of Urban Development. Investors will now be invited to submit proposals for the long-leased site, with terms and selection criteria to be set out in the call for proposals.
Maradana sits at the junction of central Colombo’s commercial and government zones and has been earmarked in successive UDA master plans for higher-density redevelopment. A 50-year lease structure preserves state ownership of the land while allowing private investors a long enough horizon to recover infrastructure costs on a mixed-use complex.
The decision dovetails with the Dissanayake administration’s stated aim of building Colombo’s footprint as a regional technology services destination. Sri Lanka’s information and communications technology and business process management exports were the worst-performing services category in March 2026, contracting 26 percent year-on-year, putting added pressure on the government to nurture domestic IT supply. Sri Lankan ICT firms separately participated in the Japan IT Week in Tokyo as part of efforts to attract inward technology investment.
Sources: EconomyNext, Newswire.
