The government will re look at some of the regulations in the new Inland Revenue Act, said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe speaking at the induction ceremony of the new president for the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Ruwan Edirisinghe, founder and head of the RN Construction Group.
“We will talk with the private sector and fine-tune some of these regulations and brining in amendments if needed,” he said.
The premiersaid that today entrepreneurs need access to capital at better terms and he is in talks with the DFCC, NDB, Bank of Ceylon and Peoples Bank to create a Development Finance Bank.
“This will be a separate bank that will assist development and emerging business ventures.”
Wickremesinghe said that unfortunately only the apparel and ICT sectors have made major impacts in the global arena representing Sri Lanka and the other industries too should look at emulating these two segments.
“We found that there are many issues concerning ease of doing business, which could have been resolved by bureaucrats, but were dealt with politicians instead. A mechanism is needed to remove obstacles and enhance the ease of doing business in Sri Lanka. The world’s future trade is bound to revolve around this region and Sri Lanka must try to exploit this,” he said.
The Prime Minister also said that the true potential of the SAARC too is yet to take off and the nationals within the region should look at more inter regional trade. “One must remember that there is a fast growing middle class and a huge two billion population.”
He said that there are lots of multi talented youth in the region and steps should be also taken to offer them better employment opportunities and education should be focused in that direction.
The new head of SAARC CCI Ruwan Edirisinghe, said that the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industries would be elevated to be one of the top world chambers by 2030. The outgoing President, SAARC CC Suraj Vaidya, said that the region must unite and form a common export processing zone and do regional value addition and re export.
He also said that more visa free travel should be encouraged. “It’s true that there is terrorism in the region but one must remember that terrorists do not need a visa for their activities.”
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