Fiscal Incentives for the Development of Health Services in Sri Lanka

Since 1992, the Government of Sri Lanka has provided fiscal incentives to private health care investors through the Board of Investment (BOI). These were initially only for hospital projects, but have been extended to non-hospital projects in recent years, although hospitals remain the predominant type of project supported. There does not appear to have been a systematic pre-appraisal of these incentives before they were introduced, and there has been no systematic evaluation of their impact and effectiveness. There is also no documented policy rationale for these incentives from a health sector perspective, although objectives can be inferred.