The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka announced that today, 22 November, a
Sri Lankan enterprise operating under the BOI, Supreme SAT, will be
launching a space satellite, for the first time in the history of the
country.
Supreme SAT is an excellent example of international cooperation in
the field of investment, being a partnership between the Supreme Group
from Sri Lanka and China Great Wall Industry Corporation, a major and
diversified State-owned Chinese conglomerate. Supreme SAT is currently
the only Sri Lankan space sector brand in the country.
This launch will be the first of three scheduled to take place respectively on 22 November 2012, June 2013, and December 2015.
The
project also illustrates the international nature of the space industry
today. The first satellite, which is the one scheduled to be launched
today, was built by Thales, a French company which is a leader in space
industries.
The satellite will be launched by a Chinese ‘Long March’
vehicle from the Xi Chang Launch Centre in China. This is a joint
project between the Supreme Group and the China Satellite Communications
Company Ltd.
Chief Executive Officer of the Supreme Group Vijith
Peiris commended the investor friendly invaluable assistance provided by
the BOI, both at the Head Office and the Kandy-Pallekelle Zone, on the
establishing of this groundbreaking project which is novel and will
offer many benefits to the public.
The project will see the emergence
of a completely new and high technology sector in Sri Lanka, the space
industry, which will result in the creation of new skills and transfer
of know how into the island, which is major objective of the BOI.
In
addition to the launches of the three satellites, the project will lead
to the construction of a space station/space academy on 10 acres of land
that are located within the BOI Export Processing Zone at Pallekele.
The value of the station is US$ 20 million.
This facility’s main role
will be the controlling of satellites, while a space academy will
conduct on the job training for Sri Lankan scientists in this new field.
The
first satellite will offer Direct Home TV (DTH) to the satellite users,
which is an area that is growing very fast worldwide. Planned future
satellites in addition to DTH will also offer services such as
broadcasting, events and up-linking, broadband services and backbone
connectivity, broadband internet services access, and other
telecommunications applications as well.
This BOI project also offers
opportunities for providing services to other countries and Supreme SAT
have already began discussions of cooperating with Afghanistan.
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