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| Wednesday, 19 January 2005 |
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Rapid job creation move in tsunami hit areas by Shirajiv Sirimane The government will set up a rapid job creating mechanism to create 10,000 employment opportunities every month in the tsunami affected areas, said the Minister of Advanced Technology and National Enterprise Development Rohitha Bogollagama. Addressing the meting titled 'Come back to business' with banks and Chamber officials at the national Development Bank yesterday the Minister said that people urgently needed to move away from the tsunami camps and start their day to day normal life. "The past has to be forgotten and we have to now think of the future," he said. He said that over 403,000 have lost their jobs and 400,000 people have lost all sources of income. The Minister called upon the state and private banks to expedite credit facilities for tsunami affected entrepreneurs within two weeks. The representatives of the two state banks who attended the meeting said that they would comply with this and assured they would issue credit facilities up to Rs. 2 million. Officials of the private banks too said they would extend this facility and added that existing customers would be given preference. "We will also set up special tsunami help desks," they said. The Minister said that new employment opportunities have emerged in the construction and ship building industry and they need financial assistance to commence their businesses. Assistant to the Governor Central Bank, Rose Cooray said that the Central Bank has launched a special tsunami relief loan scheme for Rs. 5 billion to assist the affected micro and SME sector to resume their business operations. She said that they would appeal to the world business community to obtain more finances and launch a similar scheme again. "This is the biggest ever refinance system to be launched by the Central Bank," she said. The Susahan loan scheme offers a low 6 percent interest and has a repayment period of three to eight years. The Minister said that some businessmen have not been using the banking system and had been borrowing from other sources. "This should change and people must get into the banking sector," he said. |
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