Sun City to invest $ 800 m on tourist project

South Africa’s Sun City resort will invest $800 million in a tourism project in Sri Lanka, the head of the Tourist Board said.Sun City resort is run by South African gaming and hotels group Sun International Ltd.It will be the largest investment in the country’s leisure sector, which is booming since the end of a 25-year conflict in May 2009.

“Sun City of South Africa is now going to make an $800 million investment in a 200-acre private property,” Nalaka Godahewa, head of the Tourism Board told Reuters in an interview.

The investment will be made on Sri Lanka’s hotel city in Katana, a coastal town located 15 km north of the commercial capital, Colombo, he said.

“That decision is finalised. That is one of the biggest investments.”Elanza Joubert, Sun City Resort’s deputy inventory manager at events and entertainment department, said in an e-mail response to Reuters questions, that the company would not comment on the plan until the new year.

The Government said in July it was expecting at least $1.5 billion in foreign investment in a proposed “tourist city” that includes four five-star hotels, shopping and a convention centre in Katana.

Sri Lanka has seen a remarkable rise in its post-war leisure industry with tourist arrivals expected to hit a record 820,000 and revenue to rise to a record $800 million, jumping 25 percent and 39 percent from a year earlier.