Ideals of President, PM made Budget easy for all: Ravi K

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake on Tuesday declared that it was the ideals of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that were converted into practice through Budget 2016.

The Minister made this observation during his remarks at the Daily FT-Colombo University MBA Alumni Association post-Budget Forum on Tuesday.



Karunanayake said that the 2016 Budget was an unprecedented move to change the landscape of the country through increased public investment and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in many sectors of the economy.

He said Budget 2016 was full of benefits and opportunities for both the general public and the private sector. The Minister said that as he had predicted addressing several pre-Budget sessions, the first Budget of the ‘Good Governance’ Government of President and the Prime Minister, Budget 2016 was capital-oriented and had made everyone’s lives easy.

“Now the Government has delivered as it promised. Therefore it is up to you all – the private sector – to seize this golden opportunity to be in the saddle of driving the economy as the engine of growth,” said the Minister, explaining the opportunities available for the private sector.

The Minister explaining the facilities that were made available for PPP projects said that impediments on the path of development had been significantly removed. 

The Minister said that the Government was targeting creating one million jobs with PPPs. “Our laws are archaic and the Budget proposed to do away with all such laws. We take all restrictions away to ensure that the private sector plays a pivotal role in economic development,” he said.