‘Budget will take country to next level’

Shirajiv Sirimane

The 2012 budget was formulated to take the country to the next level in the world economic ladder and several meaningful steps were taken in this regard Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara said. Speaking at the first private sector organized post budget seminar by Ernst & Young at Hotel Galadari last morning he said everybody is talking about the geographical advantage Sri Lanka has for a regional hub status in many areas.

“However this has not been fully exploited and this budget has brought proposals to make this a reality,” he said.

Dr. P. B. Jayasundara

The Secretary said though Sri Lanka has been exporting tea for the past 300 years most of it is exported in bulk form which is depriving the country additional revenue.

Similarly Sri Lanka exports apparels and here again more value addition could be done.

He was however happy that the apparel sector has added value addition to a certain extent. “I feel that Sri Lanka should try to produce textiles and the BoI will be trying to woo investors in this regard.” The apparel sector too should try to have their own textiles.

He said the budget has provided concessions to import high tech machinery and this should be exploited by apparels, tea and other sectors for both forward and backward integration.

Dr. Jayasundera said it was sad to note that though there is a Rs 10 billion surgical gauze market the items are being imported.

He said similarly cement, steel too should try to have more production in the country and the budget has paved the way for this.

He emphasized that the government was not trying to go into the 1970 era but was trying to have more ‘Made in Sri Lanka’ high quality products.

“The governments all over the world including the United States cannot do this alone and we have offered incentives for both local and foreign investors to meet this objective.”

The incentives that are offered for research too could play a major role towards meeting this goal. He once again emphasized the importance of the SME sector and requested the banks to go overseas, show their balance sheets and borrow around US $ 30 to 50 million and lend.

“Just having double or triple rating alone would not help.”

He cautioned that the unemployment rate is coming down and with education levels in the country increasing, cheap labour is hard to find in the future.

“This healthy trend is already evident when people are going for foreign employment especially to countries like Korea and Italy.”

He also said the private sector could get involved with government projects such as the Gama and Maga Naguma and claim for additional benefits.

He also said prudent financial steps have helped the country to lower inflation from 26 percent in 1977 to 6% this year and maintain a steady GDP rate of 8% for two successive years.

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