Budget will target less affluent - Deputy Minister

by Jayasiri Munasinghe

The Government will present a people friendly Budget aiming to reduce the cost of living and making people more prosperous, Deputy Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said.

He said that the Budget presented to Parliament would focus on introducing ways to increase earnings of the less affluent classes.

"In addition we hope to increase productivity of both the Government and private sector through rapid development," he said. "With more aggressive competition between the private and the Government sector, the country would be able to achieve better productivity," he said.

The Deputy Minister said that they would also focus on the development of the agriculture, industries and the services sector, targeting a rapid and planned growth. "We have introduced several measures in this regard at the last Budget and would continue to introduce additional methods to speed up the development in these areas," he said.

The Budget will also focus on infrastructure development.