Minister Mangala Samaraweera assumes Chairmanship of G-24 on behalf of SL

The ninety-eighth meeting of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development (G-24), was held in Washington, D.C. recently.

Minister of Finance and Media Mangala Samaraweera assumed the Chairmanship of the G-24 on behalf of Sri Lanka, a statement from the media unit confirmed. The last occasion Sri Lanka held Chairmanship was in 1999 during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s tenure as Finance Minister.

In his address, Minister Samaraweera was quoted in the statement as saying that the G-24 will focus on "continuing our collective and shared efforts to achieve our broad objective of improving living standards of the people in our countries."

Minister Samaraweera also stressed on the need to focus efforts on enhancing inclusive, equitable and climate resilience growth and create employment opportunities.

"Experience has shown that growth in output alone is not enough to improve the welfare of the people. It is widely agreed that transformation of the economy from a fundamentally agrarian, subsistence one to an urbanized, integrated, enterprise-dominated one is important for sustainable economic development", the Minister was quoted as saying.