COLOMBO, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows rose to 1.04 billion U.S. dollars in 2025 from 759 million dollars in 2024, according to the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD)'s World Investment Report 2026.
The report showed Sri Lanka's FDI inflows had moved from 434 million dollars in 2020 to 592 million dollars in 2021, 884 million dollars in 2022 and 713 million dollars in 2023, before increasing in the following two years.
Sri Lanka's outward FDI flows fell to 98 million dollars in 2025 from 110 million dollars in 2024, the report said. The country's inward FDI stock reached 18.23 billion dollars in 2025, up from 16.60 billion dollars in 2024. Its outward FDI stock increased to 1.80 billion dollars from 1.70 billion dollars over the same period.
The report also noted that Sri Lanka had shortened tax holidays for projects in Colombo Port City and linked them to investment scale and employment criteria. It listed the move among policy changes by developing economies to make fiscal incentives more targeted and performance-based.
The UNCTAD said South Asia's FDI inflows rose to 46.12 billion dollars in 2025 from 34.06 billion dollars in 2024, while developing Asia remained the largest recipient region among developing economies.
Globally, FDI flows rose by 6 percent to 1.6 trillion dollars in 2025, though the UNCTAD said the recovery remained uneven and was affected by geopolitical tensions, trade policy uncertainty and high financing costs. ■
