BOI signs agreement for olive trees, vocational training centre

The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka signed two new agreements with Broucke Eco Enterprises and Trainedge Institute of Education Australia recently.

Dhammika Perera, Chairman / Director General signed the agreements and formally presented the investors with the BOI Certificates of Registration.

The agreement signed with Broucke Eco Enterprises is for an experimental project to grow olive trees to produce olive oil for the export market. This unique project will experiment with growing olive trees imported from Cyprus to Sri Lanka. David Broucke, Director of Broucke Eco Enterprises said that it will take about 3 years for the trees to produce olive oil.

The project with funding from Cyprus will see an investment of Rs. 20 million and provide employment for 25. The group will initially plant about 20 Olive Trees as an experiment at Mawanella and will commence operations within 3 months.

Over 750 million olive trees are cultivated worldwide, 95% of which are in the Mediterranean region. Most of global production comes from Southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East. Its fruit, the olive, is of major agricultural importance as the source of olive oil. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps.

David John Broucke (Director) and Ms. Frances Broucke (Director) signed the agreement on behalf of the company.

The BOI also signed an agreement with Trainedge Institute of Education Australia to set up a Vocational Training Institute at Boralesgamuwa.

The Training Institute is an investment of US $ 150,000 and will create around 25 employment opportunities. Jean Paul Barallon (Chairman) and Ranjeeva Perera (Managing Director) signed the agreement on behalf of the company.