'India, an Aladdin's Lamp for SL's tourism growth'

CHAMIKARA WEERASINGHE

India, with one third of its population now belonging to the middle class, is simply an Aladdin's Lamp for Sri Lanka to prosper in the field of tourism, International Monetary Co-operation Senior Minister Dr Sarath Amunugama said.

Participating as Chief Guest at the inaugural session of the Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2012 on Tuesday, the minister said: "Whichever way Sri Lanka may rub that lamp, it could make a lot of genies come to Sri Lanka.

"Today, about 200 flights are made to India every week. We must have more flights to India."

Sri Lanka has become one of the most favourite destinations for Indian middle class tourists in recent times, Dr Amunugama said.

"The pattern of tourist influx to Sri Lanka has changed over the years since establishing peace in the country," he added.

"The majority of tourists to Sri Lanka are from India. Many come from China. Now there are more Russian tourists compared to tourists from Europe and the US," he said.

"We cannot follow all doctrinal approaches of other countries to reach our economic goals because there will be protectionism on their part one," the minister said and added that as a small country, Sri Lanka needs to have its own strategies for economic growth.

"Many changes have taken place regarding developing tourism. There are 17 five star and six star hotels in Pasi Kuda. We have a lot of potential to develop tourism in Kalpitiya," he said. "While food security is emerging as a global problem, we are in a very fortunate position as we are self- sufficient in rice. We were able to export rice last year, thanks to our policies regarding fertiliser, agriculture and land reform," Dr Amunugama said.

"This is a strong plus factor which some of us do not acknowledge. It has brought favourable results to our agricultural activities in the domestic and commercial spheres," he said.

"Two thirds of the world's shipping lines go by the Hambantota harbour. Over two thirds of the shipping in total and a large amount of the strategic oil lanes go past Sri Lanka. This is an important geographical factor that we have to exploit and we are doing that," he said.

"We are starting a new harbour in Hambantota to make the best use of the conditions," he added.

The guest speaker at the summit was Indian author and intellectual Gurcharan Das. World Bank South Asia Chief Economist Dr Kalpana Kochchar, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce chairman Susantha Ratnayaka, members of diplomatic corps, Parliamentarians and government officials were among the participants.