Govt intensifying efforts to attract FDI - President

The Government's policy is designed to ensure a modern and balanced economic management in which domestic enterprises are supported and foreign investments encouraged, President Mahinda Rajapakse said in New Delhi on Wednesday.

"We have, at the same time set ourselves a GDP growth target of eight per cent per annum over the next six years," President Rajapakse told the Indian business community at a special briefing at the Mayura Sheraton.

"In our endeavour to develop our country, Sri Lanka attaches great importance to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). My Government has therefore intensified our country's efforts to address the needs and aspirations of investors," the President said.

"My Government is hardly six weeks old. But during this short period, we have been able to give a clear direction to our economic and other policies. Our economic policy was also spelt out clearly in my manifesto titled Mahinda Chintana," he said.

It is now our commitment and determination to steer our country's economy towards the creation of new economic opportunities that will enable our people to come out of poverty quickly, permanently, and in a spirit of equity, he added.

It is also our stated policy that the benefits of economic development should be genuinely enjoyed by all sections of the people of our country, and in particular the lower income groups that account for almost 50 per cent of our country's population.

The Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka, is the central body for the facilitation of Direct Foreign Investment in our country. The BOI which is represented at our meeting today is a 'one-stop-stop' that expedites the approval processes and the setting up of projects in Sri Lanka.

"It is my hope that you will use the opportunity of this morning's meeting and the meetings that follow, to develop close ties with each other in order to commence continue and consolidate your businesses in Sri Lanka," the President said.

Many Indian firms have identified Sri Lanka as an attractive centre for economic activity and investment in our region. Indian investors are well positioned to benefit immensely from our recently concluded agreements with several important countries and trading blocks.

The President noted that many Indian enterprises have already made use of the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement, and started operations in our country. "There has been, in recent years a significant growth in bilateral trade, economic activity and planned economic partnership between our two countries. We are confident this trend will continue to offer more and more opportunities to the private sector of both our countries."

The President said: "Agriculture, livestock, fisheries and plantations, are among the thrust areas of our national development strategy. We shall also provide special assistance to small and medium enterprises.

SMEs as they as called tourism, industries and banking. Furthermore our special attention will be directed to infrastructure and rural development, while education, health, skills development, poverty alleviation, good governance and the encouragement of foreign investment will be our priority fields of focus.

We shall also be taking steps to improve productivity, and to create such marketable skills within our labour force that will enable our people to secure employment, both in Sri Lanka and abroad.To achieve the transformation of our economy in this manner, we seek to mobilize the domestic private sector on the one side, and the foreign investor community on the other.

And, when mobilizing the foreign investor community to invest in our country, we look to India's business community as a natural and a strategic partner.

For you as business leaders, the formulation ....... plans, vision statements, mission statements, goals, strategies and action plans for you own enterprises and business house, constitutes a routine procedure. Therefore, you develop budgets, targets, performance measurement indicators and time frames for implementation.

It is by following these processes that a sense of direction and a feeling of accountability develop among your stakeholders. You are then able to move with discipline and confidence towards the realization of your vision.I believe that a nation too needs to develop for itself a clear focus and a sense of purpose.

Therefore when presenting my government's first budget on December 8 this year, we linked it in every possible way to the long term goals of the 'Mahinda Chintana' By doing so, we felt we could make sure that our stakeholders would be able to move together, both with a sense of urgency and confidence, towards the achievement of our vision for our country."