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PM says govt. ready to climb every mountain for the sake of economic growth
Mr. Wickremesinghe said the Budget was prepared with the participation of President Maithripala Sirisena and both the UNP and SLFP ministers
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday invoked the words of the Chinese reformist leader Deng Xiaoping to stress that the economic path of the government of national unity would not be confined by ideologies.
“I don’t care if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice,” said Deng Xiaoping and similarly I don’t care if the colour is green or blue or red, we will work together to build an economic policy that would be retained even if there are changes in government,” the Prime Minister said while participating in the second day of the Budget debate in Parliament yesterday.
The premier said that even though the two main parties are together now, they may go their separate ways in the future but under the present unity government, economic policies will be put in place that will remain constant despite political changes.
“This is the best opportunity to make new economic policies taking the strengths of the two main parties into consideration so that when there is a change in government, one will not say these are the other parties’ policies and change them,” he said.
Mr. Wickremesinghe said the Budget was prepared with the participation of President Maithripala Sirisena and both the UNP and SLFP ministers. “This is a historic Budget with the two main parties, the UNP and the SLFP, working together to prepare it,” he said.
“In the past year we had to overcome the immediate economic challenges we faced having to pay off massive loans and had to resurrect the economy which was suffering from bad investment. We have scaled one mountain but there is a steeper mountain ahead but we will overcome it too,” he said.
The Premier said that there may be some difficulties to face in the next two to three years but with the changes that are being put in place, the economy will move forward.
He also spoke on forging new economic alliances with Free Trade Agreements with China, India and Singapore in the pipeline while Pakistan and Iran too would be the other countries that the government seeks stronger ties with.
“We have to develop relations with the Southern Indian states as well as other Bay of Bengal nations as well as Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar where there is accelerating economic growth. We also have to develop new industry as, except from the garment sector, revenue from other sectors including the Middle East will decline,” he said.
The Prime Minister said the Budget is meant for the masses and that the additional revenue the government earns will go towards education, health and housing.
He said many measures were introduced in the Budget to further strengthen the free education system in the country. “I have benefited from the free education system in the country so has the President as well as many others here. We will further strengthen it and make 13 years of schooling mandatory,” he said.