• CSE targets increased foreign participation with investor forum in early 2025  
• Collaboration with BOI, Colombo Port City, and CCC to attract global investors  
• Foreign investment in SL’s stock market rising, but yet to hit pre-2018 levels  
• CSE optimistic that debt restructuring and rating upgrade will reignite int’l interest

The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) will be conducting an investor forum in Sri Lanka in early 2025 to promote the CSE and Sri Lanka among foreign investors, it is learnt.

Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, CSE Chairman Dilshan Wirasekara revealed that they would be organising an investor forum locally by early 2025 to promote the CSE and Sri Lanka. 

Accordingly, the CSE will be inviting foreign investors and foreign fund managers to participate in this forum.

Wirasekara added: “The CSE is planning to hold such an event. We have been putting it off because of the elections – the Presidential Election before and now the General Elections. 

“We are looking at the possibility of having it in the post-election period, possibly in early 2025.”  

Accordingly, he stated that as a first step towards promoting foreign investment, they would be looking to organise this forum in January or February 2025 with the collaboration of other investment authorities such as the Board of Investment (BOI), Colombo Port City, and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) as a joint initiative.  

Wirasekara further stated that foreign participation in the Colombo bourse had improved recently to around 15% of the total market turnover, up from the lows of 5% seen in 2021. 

However, he pointed out that foreign participation in the bourse was nowhere near the historical average of 50% of the market turnover as observed before 2018.

Nevertheless, he was optimistic that foreign participation in the CSE would continue to grow on the back of the improving trend of the Sri Lankan economy following the sovereign default. He further opined that foreign participation in the CSE would properly hit its stride only once Sri Lanka came out of its default status.

“We are still in Restricted Default (RD) status. Once we complete the entire debt restructuring process, which is almost complete, only the final steps will have to be carried out. 

“The rating agencies will then have to acknowledge that Sri Lanka is no longer in default and will therefore not be classified as RD. This will result in a rating upgrade. We believe that it is only at this point that real foreign investor interest will be ignited,” he stated.

Accordingly, he claimed that until Sri Lanka officially came out of its default status, it was not feasible for the CSE to incur expenditure to carry out roadshows abroad to promote the bourse.