The government will broadly review the budget 2019 that has been presented to Parliament and realign its expenditure priorities, Eran Wickramaratne, State Minister of Finance said.
The minister expressed hope that the reviewing exercise could be completed in June, this year.
“We will be reviewing the budget for obvious reasons. As you know our revenue numbers will be affected. When the revenues get less, it is essential to adjust our expenditure. If we don’t do that exercise, ultimately it will put more pressure on the budget deficit. Once we do that exercise, we will be talking with each ministry to determine their expenditure priorities,” Minister Wickramaratne said.
He expressed these views at an event held in Colombo and organized by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka to discuss business issues, under the prevailing security situation in country.
Furthermore, despite the significant impact on the Sri Lankan economy after the recent attack that hit luxury hotels and churches in Sri Lanka, the Minister stressed that the government is in a position to meet its debt obligations due to its well maintained fiscal discipline.
“To this end, we will also go in to international markets and raise dollars very soon.” Wickramaratne said.
Speaking on recently introduced relief package including a number of tax concessions to strengthen the tourism industry affected by Easter Sunday Attack, the Minister said a moratorium was announced by Central Bank of Sri Lanka to the tourism sector institutions and individuals, on a case-by-case basis. And the moratorium is agreed with the banks and the accounting agencies. Commenting on International Monetary Fund (IMF) extended fund facility arrangement for Sri Lanka; the Minister noted that Sri Lanka has fulfilled some of the important reforms, introduced by the IMF.
“The IMF extended the program for a year. Within that period, we have given ourselves a bit more time to take on some of the other reforms,” he said. He said further that any government must go for major reforms in the first 18 months of its office to realize the set targets of the economy.
Minister Wickramaratne said the government is also making every effort to revive the tourism industry within a short period of time.
Speaking further on the relief package granted for the tourism industry, he said government needs to make sure that it doesn’t transfer the problems of the tourism industry into banking industry.
“That’s why it was revised in a way. To get this scheme implemented, we have to get the approval of the banks in particular the accounting agencies, responsible for the accounting standards and international financial reporting standards as well.”
Commenting on recent cyber attacks which affected both the private and public sector websites in the country, Minister Wickramaratne stressed the need to conduct cyber threat assessments by each organization with the support of relevant state owned cyber security agencies.
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