Sri Lanka looks to future with hope and enthusiasm
Calls for deferment of debt payment and creation of
NAM Reserve facility:
President
Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing the NAM Summit |
A great sigh of relief has now swept across the entire nation being
finally released from the grip of the fear of terrorism.
The Sri Lankan Nation now looks to the future with renewed hope and
enthusiasm, said President Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing the 15th summit
of the Non-Aligned Movement being held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt
todayJuly 15.
“Our Government is aware that defeating a terrorist group does not
solve the underlying grievances of our people. We are therefore now
dealing with these issues. First and foremost, we are engaged in
attending to the needs of the 287,000 civilians who were held hostage by
the terrorists and liberated by our Security Forces. Our goal is to
quickly return the displaced to their homes and to restore their
livelihoods,” added the President.
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa meeting
UNSG Ban Ki Moon on the sidelines of the NAM Summit |
Referring to the world financial and economic crises, President
Rajapaksa said: “The world is today confronted by a crisis that is
essentially the creation of the financial markets of certain developed
countries. As a consequence of his financial crisis, our development
agenda is challenged; our exports are crippled; our industries are
suffering from a lack of confidence; and we face an externally induced
liquidity shortfall. It is unfortunate that many countries of the
developing world, which largely with their own resources climbed up the
ladder of development, are adversely affected and even penalized in this
manner due to the global financial crisis which was not of their own
making”.
He called for a temporary deferment of debt repayment as an essential
short-term initiative to overcome current difficulties of the affected
developing countries. He proposed that NAM combine its substantial
collective resources to establish an Emergency Financing Facility which
could be accessed in situations of the current sort.
“The global financial architecture must reflect current
circumstances, be democratic and, until such time, it would be sensible
to establish a Reserve Facility of our own to assist fellow developing
country in emergency situations,” the President said.
He also told the NAM that developing countries must be assisted
technologically and financially to follow a different development model
from the ones which have resulted in damage to our Planet. |