Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that marketing to a 22 million within the country cannot gain momentum in economic growth and Sri Lanka needs to win the international market to accelerate the economic growth envisaged.
The Prime Minister emphasized that the rapid economic growth could be achieved first entering neighboring markets and then through the regional markets into the international markets and competitiveness is essential for this process.
The Prime Minister expressed these views participating as the Chief Guest in the Sixth Annual Membership Meeting of the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo on Tuesday.
Addressing the gathering the Premier said it is essential to identify the challenges that stand in the way and overcome them.
“Economic growth means creating jobs and generating income. Today, the responsibility and primary function for economic growth has been assigned to the private sector. My question is whether you are ready to take that challenge. I would like to ask you whether you have enough confidence to accept that challenge,” the Premier said.
The Premier stressed that strong, talented directors who are ready to accept challenges are needed to take the economy forward.
“We only have a 22 million market. We cannot grow rapidly in such a small market. Therefore, we have to access large markets. First to the neighborhood markets, then to the regional markets. After that entering into the international markets we must be competitive. We are more likely to succeed in achieving greater economic growth when we become more competitive,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
“We need to decide whether we are going to widen the protectionism or going forward opening ourselves to the world. We opened the economy in 1977 but we didn’t have enough confidence to take certain measures. At that time, in certain sectors we were ahead of the regional economy. But all that changed.”
“Today the base for our economic growth should be from the business sector. We need private sector businesses. We need jobs, foreign direct investment, new technology etc. for growth,” the Premier said.
He added that the apparel industry and hospitality and tourism sectors need to be further developed to stay competitive with other countries.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said the government is aware of the private sector’s capabilities in this area and the Enterprise Sri Lanka Investment Promotion Programme just launched is fundamental in building a prosperous country. The government has allocated more than 10 billion rupees for this program to encourage entrepreneurs and a development finance corporation will also be established to support this program.
Prime Minister emphasizing that employment generation is a must for economic growth requested the private sector to formulate their strategies to reap the maximum benefits from Enterprise Sri Lanka.
