The International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank, plans to more than double its investments in Sri Lanka within the next two years. IFC, which currently has 86 million dollars of investments in areas like ports, telecommunications and power, hopes to ramp up its portfolio by helping local companies who are in the process of expanding overseas. The bulk of the investments within the next two years will focus on infrastructure projects like ports and telecoms.

IFC marks 50 years of operations in Sri Lanka this year. Sri Lanka’s 25 billion-dollar economy is forecast to expand by over seven per cent this year despite decades of ethnic bloodshed that has claimed over 60,000 lives since 1972.