Budget 2018: More bouquets than brickbats
View(s):Sri Lanka’s first designer budget has been viewed as unconventional to some, confusing to others and long term visionary goals to pragmatists.
While the focus is on creating hundreds of new enterprises in a green economy and provide opportunities to school leavers and young entrepreneurs, sticking points in the 2018 budget are fears that foreign companies will invade the shipping sector and high taxes would result in a sharp hike in car prices.
Another matter of concern is whether the tax proposals can raise the required revenue, according to eminent economist Prof. Sirimal Abeyratne of the Colombo University.
Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera and his team made all the nice noises, pandering to the environmental lobby, the start-up lobby, the enterprises development lobby and the tourism lobby providing incentives to boost growth in these sectors. Education and school-leavers were also given pride of place.
However missing in the budget this time and the annexures (which are not normally read out) was the foreign debt repayment schedule, a tidy sum per year.
While the 2017 budget contained details of both the servicing of local and foreign debt, in Thursday’s presentation only the schedule of servicing local debt is given.
According to this schedule, local domestic debt repayments amount to Rs. 2.2 trillion in 2018, rising up to Rs. 2.8 trillion in 2020.
The 2017 budget provided the foreign debt servicing schedule which said there was a “clustering during 2019-2022 mainly due to maturing sovereign bonds” as at end September 2016. According to that schedule, foreign debt repayments is US$2.2 billion in 2017, $2.4 billion in 2018, $3.7 billion in 2009, $3.2 billion in 2020, $3.3 billion in 2o21, $3.6 billion in 2022 and a high of $4 billion in 2035.
Prof. Abeyratne, while welcoming the progressive budget, said while it brought many expectations implementation was the key.