The event was organized by the Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce.
“The government of Sri Lanka also intends on maintaining a democratic environment of good governance and equality for all as we move forward towards our economic goals. We intend to strengthen the commercial infrastructure under the system of good governance that seeks to eradicate corruption”, the Minister added.
Speaking further, the Finance Minister said’
“For those of you who have not visited Sri Lanka, I encourage you to visit there. I wished to give you an introduction to the scenic beauty of Sri Lanka but my task this morning is to focus on the economic prospects of our country. If you have kept up with the developments in Sri Lanka you would know that we took over from the previous regime, Our economic policy direction is entirely different.
Sri Lanka, has an economy that has been bouncing along at around 7 per-cent, it has been doing that for the past 4 to 5 years. Our per-capita income has grown to about USD 3200 and it is continuing to grow – we are getting richer by the year. Our unemployment rate is a healthy 4.4 per-cent. Our GDP at market price is over 67.2 Billion USD and continuing to grow.
There are sectors in our economy where we seem to be falling short of the required level of labour; due to the fast expansion in these areas. The garment industry is one such area, the former government lost out on a series of concessions due to their disrespect for the basic norms of international humanitarian law – we fully intend on winning back the confidence of the western world and expanding our industries hand in hand with international investors.
We are also an excellent place from which to access India, it is also important to note that Sri Lanka is one of the very few countries which have a free trade agreement with India, we also have a free trade agreement with Pakistan anyone who has been to Sri Lanka will tell you that it is an easy place to locate in, it does not have the huge bureaucracy that some of our neighbors have.
Our current investment climate is also ideal, we used to having interest rates in the 20’s and it has now come down to the single digits. Yield curve has totally shifted down and international reserves have improved. We intend on continuing this trend by allowing for the free-float of the rupee, a policy contrary to that which was adopted by the previous government.
In the equity market the market size is 22.5 Billion and 295 companies have listed in 20 sectors and in the coming week the CSE is said to begin classification of its industries by the Global Industry Classification System (GICS); making it more comparable with other markets. Sri Lanka has performed much better than most of the international indices, similarly if you take regional markets, Sri Lanka has performed exceedingly better”.
Over 200 leading investors with an asset base of over $110 million participated at the forum. Representatives from 12 blue chip companies of Sri Lanka were also in attendance.
