Ceylon Chamber and SLBA strengthen ongoing partnership

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Sri Lanka Banks’ Association (SLBA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to formalise and strengthen their ongoing partnership in promoting sustainable finance and financial inclusion in Sri Lanka.

The two organisations through this partnership aim to engage in building both demand-side and supply-side capacity and connectivity on sustainable finance in advancing the Sustainable Finance Roadmap for Sri Lanka and the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. A key outcome aimed for through the MoU is to enable greater access for financing for Sri Lanka’s private sector, especially the export-oriented value chains and SME sector, to enable their sustainability transitions.

The Ceylon Chamber’s Vision 2030: Five Year Economic Plan (2025-2030) outlines key targets including increasing the share of Sri Lanka’s exports to 30% of GDP and increasing the SME contribution to the economy to 60% of the GDP. With global trade, finance and investment regimes increasingly emphasising sustainability, Sri Lanka’s private sector and industry must rapidly transition and build capacity to remain competitive in international markets. The Ceylon Chamber’s Vision 2030 identifies key areas of mobilisation including supporting the national target of 70% renewable energy share in electricity and the Chamber’s advocacy for a 20% reduction in commercial energy intensity and mobilisation of resources for climate adaptation and resilience, especially in priority sectors such as agri-food.

With the banking sector accounting for over 60% of Sri Lanka’s financial sector assets, SLBA has been actively supporting Sri Lanka’s green economy transition and financial inclusion with its voluntary Sustainable Banking Initiative (SBI) since 2015. While building internal capacity within the banking sector, SBI has also engaged with other sector associations to promote innovative sustainable finance solutions.

In 2023, the Ceylon Chamber and SLBA SBI together with the Sustainable Development Council embarked on a collaboration to explore innovative sustainable finance solutions.

A key focus of this collaboration was to explore the establishment of a Blended Finance Facility that could attract private capital (both domestic and international) to address viability gaps in key sectors (such as agri-food) through risk sharing and structured finance solutions.

The MoU between the Ceylon Chamber and SLBA, whilst strengthening the ongoing cooperation on blended finance initiative, also aims to extend support to member companies of the two organisations with national and industry level engagement on their sustainability and climate strategies, on opportunities and risks (IFRS S1 and S2); in developing capacity to align financing needs and mobilisation in terms of Sri Lanka’s Green Finance Taxonomy.