Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera who says that horse racing “can attract tourists” and “bring about clear investment benefits to state coffers – wants to give the Nuwara Eliya Race Course a new ‘lease’ of life. He wants to charge only Rs 200,000 for the first year and negotiate a fee for the rest of the ten year lease he has proposed.
This race course now belongs to the Ministry of Sports. Its maintenance and management is vested in the Sugathadasa Sports Complex Authority. The Royal Turf Club, which entered into a lease, has been operating the race course since 2015 and on an extended agreement that is to expire on December 31.
Minister Jayasekera, who is seeking approval to call for applications from new lessees notes that in 2016, there were 103 horses and 29 horse owners. The staff at the race course was 89 persons.”
The UK government has unveiled a package of reforms to simplify imports from developing countries which allows for more garments manufactured in Sri Lanka to enter the UK tariff-free.
Read these and more on tomorrow’s edition of the Sunday Times
Cabinet has approved the appointment of Commodore (retired) M.B.N.A. Premaratne of the Sri Lanka Navy, as the new Commissioner General of Excise.
Villagers in Nirmalapura, Daluwa, Norochcholai today staged a protest over an incident where a group of Navy officials and sailors had assaulted a resident in the area over night, Police said.
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