JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment said this week it would begin taking land reservations from investors at a planned export processing zone in Paranthan, Northern Province, by the end of November, and start building infrastructure there and at a second zone in Kankesanthurai in early January.
The board announced the schedule in a statement on Wednesday after its chairman, Duminda Hulangamuwa, and its director general, Sulakshana Jayawardena, visited the province. In Kilinochchi District, they met the district and divisional secretaries, a coordinating secretary to Bimal Rathnayaka, the cabinet minister, and officials from the road, railway, and electricity agencies. They also briefed the Northern Province governor, Nagalingam Vethanayahan.
Both zones have been promised for years. In 2023, the government named the former Paranthan Chemicals Corporation site and the former Kankesanthurai Cement Corporation premises among planned investment zones. The Northern Provincial administration said in September 2024 that the two zones had been formally named and inaugurated. In August 2025, the board’s chairman at the time, Arjuna Herath, described Kankesanthurai as a 300-acre zone for apparel and information technology and Paranthan as a 200-acre zone for chemicals and manufacturing.
This week’s statement did not say how much the zones would cost, how many jobs they were expected to create, or whether any company had committed to setting up there.
Paranthan lies near Kilinochchi, which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam used as their administrative capital until government forces captured it in January 2009. Kankesanthurai, at the northern tip of the Jaffna Peninsula, has a harbor and sits a short distance across the Palk Strait from southern India. The military occupied large areas around it during and after the war, and the release of land there to civilians has been a long-running grievance.
The board said it would bring leading investors and business associations to the province in November to see the sites. Mr. Hulangamuwa, a chartered accountant who became chairman in July, proposed what the board called a single-point coordination mechanism to follow investors’ problems with approvals and land through to resolution. The board also asked the governor to support a facilitation center in the province so that investors would not have to deal with every agency through Colombo.
Investors in Sri Lanka have long complained about slow approvals and the number of agencies involved in obtaining land, utilities and permits. On taking office, Mr. Hulangamuwa said he wanted to make the board a true “one stop shop.”
The board also plans a database of workers in the province, listing their skills and qualifications, for companies assessing the local labor supply.
Officials are separately examining whether sea cucumber and seaweed farms at Ariyalai, on the Jaffna Peninsula, could be expanded into larger export businesses. Sea cucumbers sell in several Asian markets, and seaweed is used in food and industrial products. The board did not say how large the expansion would be or how it might affect fishing communities in the area.
