Lankan computer literacy rate will be increased - Prime Minister

by Shirajiv Sirimane

"The Sri Lankan computer literacy rate, which is around 10 percent, would be increased to 50 percent within the next three years," said Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse.

Speaking at the Dahas Diriya financial benefits awards ceremony at Galle Face Hotel organised by the Export Development Board yesterday he said that action plans are already in place to achieve this goal.

"The e-Sri Lanka initiative is coordinated by his office and the objective is to spread it to the villages," the Prime Minister said.

He said that Sri Lanka is very weak in implementing policies and said that his priority would be implementation which would revitalise Sri Lanka's pride.

"My vision for Sri Lanka's economy is that Sri Lanka has to grow at 8 to 10 per cent in the coming years, for us to catch up with the fast growing developing countries. To achieve this growth, we need prudent budgetary management independent monetary policy, control of inflation and all give macro-economic stability," he said.

"While a conducive macroeconomic environment will be good for private sector activities, this alone is not adequate. I intend to continue with some of our Government's innovative programmes on infrastructure development, on an accelerated basis, and put a solid foundation for boad basing the private sector activities in the economy. I believe in more people-oriented enterprises in this country."

While doing this, I will not forget the message that came from last year's General Elections both in Sri Lanka and India. That is, people do not want high growth alone, but they need effective delivery of services, and they need care. Therefore, technical economic policies should have a human face.

"Poverty alleviation will receive strong emphasis in our future Government where people of the North, South, East and West will be given opportunities to come out of poverty."

However, we cannot live on handouts for the poor for too long and that is why we have to promote the innovative skills of our rural people for them to come out of poverty. For this purpose, while we are putting the overall economy under a stable framework, we have to focus on small and medium enterprises, agro-based industries, fisheries industry, and so on, which touch the very livelihood of the poor.

Non-traditional exports are dominated by a few products and there is a need for diversification to more export products. This we believe is the only way to cushion ourselves from various external shocks. It is in this context that the Dahas Diriya scheme becomes important and will play a crucial role in facilitating the diversification of our exports. The 2005 budget allocated a sum of Rupees one thousand million for the development of the non-traditional exports.

"Our Government felt that there is a need to reward exporters of non-traditional products on their export performance and encourage investments in the export sector."

"Minister Bogollagama earlier took the bold step to remove the fifteen per cent VAT applicable to gem imports to facilitate gems and jewellery export sector," the Prime Minister said.