PB tells IMF ‘Northern Expressway will be Sri Lanka’s next landmark’
Friday, 12 July 2013 00:01
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Finance Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera has told visiting IMF Asia Pacific Department Director Anoop Singh that Sri Lanka’s next landmark will be the $ 1.5 billion Northern Expressway. This description was in response to Singh’s poser to Dr. Jayasundera as to the former’s query on what will be Sri Lanka’s next landmark.
During his keynote address at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Summit on Wednesday, Dr. Jayasundera said that the IMF official, during a breakfast meeting with him, had been impressed with the changing landscape in the city and followed up with this question. Upon hearing about Northern Expressway, Singh said: “Next time, invite me to Sri Lanka not for a summit but for a holiday,” Dr. Jayasundera told the Chamber Summit. The IMF official delivered the keynote at Economic Summit’s inauguration on Tuesday.
The Northern Expressway which will connect Kandy, Kurunegala and Dambulla to the north and east will be completed by 2016. “This expressway network, which aims at connecting all ports and the two airports in the country, is conducive to promoting regional growth centres targeting agriculture, manufacturing, tourism resources and financial services towards creating an export economy with high value creation in the domestic economy to transform a one-time primary commodity producing export economy to a modern economy,” Dr. Jayasundera said on Wednesday.
