{"id":44285,"date":"2015-12-03T00:03:43","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T04:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=44285"},"modified":"2015-12-03T01:56:04","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T05:56:04","slug":"sri-lanka-must-become-a-high-income-country-by-2030-declares-prime-minister-ranil-wickremesinghe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=44285","title":{"rendered":"“Sri Lanka Must Become a High Income Country by 2030” Declares Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charumini de Silva<\/strong><\/p>\n

A confident Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday sounded determined to lead Sri Lanka to achieve higher socioeconomic growth, despite looming external shocks.<\/p>\n

In remarks at the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) followed by the ringing of the market opening bell yesterday, the Premier warned of Sri Lanka facing unpredictable external political and economic turmoil owing to the global fight against ISIS, drop in commodity prices, addition of Chinese currency Yuan to the IMF\u2019s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket and a politically-motivated hike in US interest rates.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe said these developments, on top of lowered world economic growth, \u201care going to impact us and the rest of the world economically\u201d in 2016.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also got to remember that there will be pressure on our currency, there will be increased financial market volatility and low inflows,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Despite external and local challenges, the Prime Minister said that it was important to maintain Sri Lanka\u2019s growth at 6.5% next year and aspire to increase it to 8-9% thereafter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a difficult task, but it is not impossible. We have to do this because by 2030 Sri Lanka must become a high-income country. Thus, all our efforts have to be mobilised to achieve this target,\u201d the Prime Minister emphasised.<\/p>\n

In response to Moody\u2019s recent report warning high budget deficits in Sri Lanka were credit negative, Wickremesinghe acknowledged the status quo but sounded optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we will have a high deficit initially, but as foreign and local investments grow and when we bring more people and income into the tax net, we will be able to achieve a 3.5% deficit by 2020,\u201d he said confidently.<\/p>\n

Restructuring of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and ensuring improved performance will also play a key role in the country lowering the budget deficit. <\/p>\n

The Premier said that some public sector entities would be listed next year to ensure growth. \u201cWe are keeping 2020 deficit target for SOEs to make a contribution to the national economy and to State revenue. We are also paying attention to the fundamentals of a highly-competitive social market economy, which will include free education and health, improved public transportation and subsidised housing available for the people,\u201d Wickremesinghe said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to have structural reforms to facilitate investment and growth. We want to ensure an expanding and a strong middle class in this country,\u201d said the Prime Minister noting that was the basis for the 2016 Budget.<\/p>\n

He also said that via the mini-Budget early this year, the Government boosted aggregate demand among people. However he said a lot of available and untapped consumable income remained in the economy, especially in the balance sheets of some of our companies. \u201cWe have to find ways and means to ensure all that is directed to investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on revenue generation in the economy, he pointed that it was time that the Government found ways and means to ensure that all of it was directed towards investments. <\/p>\n

The Premier also emphasised how Megapolis and the Port City projects would boost the economy and contribute towards making Colombo a special business and financial district.<\/p>\n

Future policy and initiatives are being spearheaded by the Economic Management Committee of the Cabinet with senior members of both parties and supported by Policy Development Office responsible for economic, domestic and global policy led by Charitha Ratwatte and the Institute of Policy Studies headed by Dr. Razeen Sally. Upcoming new institutions such as Agency for Development as well as International Trade Agency were also cited.
\nCommenting on the Budget 2016, he said that it was very much like the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. \u201cFirstly at the end of the year you give a bonus, that was the Interim (mini) Budget; then you have the nonagathaya, which is the current period, and in 2016 we will have the actual New Year taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charumini de Silva A confident Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday sounded determined to lead Sri Lanka to achieve higher socioeconomic growth, despite looming external shocks. In remarks at the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) followed by the ringing of the market opening bell yesterday, the Premier warned of Sri Lanka …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘“Sri Lanka Must Become a High Income Country by 2030” Declares Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44286,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44285\/revisions\/44286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}