The Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance is working with the Asian Development Bank to introduce a credit guarantee scheme and they plan to introduce it before the end of the year and the Industrial Development Board (IDB) Act also has a provision to establish an Industrial Development Fund and that too will be put in place to help budding industrialists, Dr. Saranga Alahapperuma, Chairman, Industrial Development Board told a press conference held in Colombo on Thursday.
Entrepreneurs which consist of 2.8% of the 8.5-9 million labour force in the country must be increased to at least 10% and the ease of doing business ranking must improve to at least below 50th position from 99th place reported in 1920-21 during the next five years, for Sri Lanka to record rapid development, he said.
Dr Alahapperuma also noted that the local industry manufacturing share towards the GDP was 15% and they intend to take it to at least 25% by 2030 and the export share of the GDP which is 16% should be pushed to 30% by 2030.
The country encounters 5 obstacles with regard to ease of doing business which is the 3 Ls, land, license and liquidity, policy inconsistency and low entrepreneurship ratio and they are working to enhance these five.
He said discussions have already begun in this regard and the country needs to go through a lot of reforms and they were working with the government and private sector to achieve that target, Dr. Alahapperuma said.
The IDB Chairman clarified that the World Bank in 2004 through international financial cooperation had done a study to ascertain why some countries were developed and some countries were poor and how some countries in a few decades switched from poor to developed.
The finding of the study revealed that if doing business is easy those countries are developed and within a country if doing business is difficult those countries are poor and counties who change their policies, to make doing business easy were the countries that convert during a few decades from poor to developed.
“Therefore Sri Lanka should follow suit,” he cautioned.
***************
Industry 2023 Expo at BMICH from June 22-25
The Ministry of Industries and the Industrial Development Board (IDB) have organized ‘Industry 2023’, the National Industry Exhibition with the theme of “Towards Export-oriented Manufacturing Economy” which is the largest industrial event.
The exhibition is scheduled to be held from June 22 to 25, 2023 at the BMICH. The exhibition showcases the innovation and local industry excellence in machinery, technology, raw material and business development services to the potential local/international markets and most importantly create a platform to make relationships with right stakeholders including policy makers as well as other government support services.
Institute of Supply and Materials Management (ISMM) being the professional partner with IDB will be playing a key role during ‘Industry 2023’ to enhance professionalism in Supply Chain Management in local industries.
Add new comment