CB Governor’s Jaffna visit a success:

Tremendous growth in Jaffna

Charumini DE SILVA

It is important to have balanced economic activities everywhere in the country with the dawn of peace. The recent visit to Jaffna was a success and the business community there was pleased as they had a business forum to express their views and ideas. There will be tremendous growth in Jaffna with the developments being implemented, Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Daily News Business.

He said much potential is shown in the sectors of agriculture, fisheries and education.

“The potential for traditional agriculture and non-traditional agriculture is huge as the farmers in this area are keen on cultivating the lands.

“There is much scope in the education industry and there is a great demand for IT education as well. The fisheries industry is another key area where we could have more economic activities, he said.

The Central Bank is directly involved in providing loan facilities to the business community in the area and we also work through several commercial banks in providing loan facilities. At present a fair amount of loans has been disbursed. We have given instructions to those banks to increase the speed of the process of granting loans,” he said.

“We opened a few commercial banks in the Jaffna town and the banks wish to recruit more staff for the banks in the area as well. There will be more job opportunities in the banking sector as foreign banks also make their presence in Jaffna in the near future,” Cabraal said.

The cheque clearance facilities have been given to all newly commenced banks to make transactions easier. Online transaction facilities are also given to them and many of the transactions are done by the online system. It is important to make use of the advantages of technology and the banking system has the up-to- date technology to provide a quality and a better service to the people, he said.

“Under the Uthuru Wasanthaya program the Central Bank has allocated Rs. 3 billion and we hope that the banks will make use of this facility.

“Under this program more than 1,000 loans have been granted and we hope to grant more loans with the development programs being implemented,” he said.