President Maithripala Sirisena is due to unveil the government’s three-year economic plan tomorrow. On Friday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe indicated that the President will announce the plan that is to be implemented within the next three years to achieve economic development as the next three years are considered government’s development phase.
Speaking on the economic development plan the government is to adopt, Deputy Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs, Dr. Harsha de Silva stated that the plan aims to find solutions for the reasons behind Sri Lanka’s growth constraints and reforms that should be immediately adopted to overcome such constraints and to obtain a sustainable growth.
“The economic program, spells out the constraints and what we need to do to remove those constraints such as policy reforms in the areas of land, Labour and capital.
“We also need to create an economy that is not driven by debt, but fuelled by non-tradeable sectors such as construction and internal trading,” the Deputy Minister said.
Dr. De Silva said that the policy which the President will declare tomorrow is based on the theme ‘creating a knowledge based highly competitive social market economy as the hub of the Indian Ocean.’
He said Sri Lanka’s economy must be converted to a tradeable heavy economy with the main focus on exports and stated that the President will address these matters and also address issues in building up the country’s export market which has currently fallen to unsustainable levels and that Sri Lanka should augment the export market by introducing highly competitive products.
The policy will include topics such as reaching a ‘knowledge based highly competitive social market economy’. The economic policy will further entail the need to revisit our trade policies, investment technology and where foreign direct investments lay on exports in order to increase Sri Lanka’s export capacity. When asked if the economic development plan entails ways and means to reduce bureaucratic red tape that at times repel investors, he said that they have identified coordination as an important factor and will include institutional coordination to reduce bureaucratic red tape and delays.