Over 82% of the national revenue is spent on state sector salaries, said State Minister of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Development Prasanna Ranaweeera at the Ceylon Craft Workshop of the Western Province Craft Council at the National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka in Battaramulla.
“This is a heavy burden to the Government, and we are looking at ways to trim this amount,” Ranaweera said.
He said that there are over 3.5 million children within the ages 10 – 20 in Sri Lanka, and about 350,000 of them are looking for job opportunities every year.
“The youth have to be innovative and enterprising with self-reliance to take the future challenge of the country. We should deviate from our traditional thinking of every one trying to become an employee under state or private sector, but I call upon the youth to become successful self-entrepreneurs,” he said.
The State Minister said new generation entrepreneurs are educated, experimenting innovations and they possess quality personality characteristics while the older generation entrepreneurs gradually leave the stage, and the new generation entrepreneurs rise to become the main force of enterprises.
Ranaweera called upon the youth to come forward to become entrepreneurs as one of the biggest advantages of getting to entrepreneurship at a young age is the opportunity to learn important skills such as teamwork, networking, problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation and self-discipline.
He said President Ranil Wickremesinghe too is keen in uplifting the micro and small industry sector and the Government will provide assistance to them to be self-employed.