Pavithra urges private sector to become active partners in national development

Following is the address delivered by Minister of Research and Technology Pavithra Wanniarachchi at the Business Today Top Twenty Five awards ceremony

Apey Podi Hamuduruwo saha Assaji Hamuduruwogen Avasarai, Basil Rajapaksa, Minister for Economic Development, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Leader of the Opposition, Members of the Parliament, distinguished invitees, ladies and gentlemen.

First of all, let me congratulate all of you for your excellent achievements duly recognised by Business Today, the premier business magazine.

I see the significance of these awards in two aspects: in one way by recognising the achievements, the top businesses are motivated to retain their standards and continue to be awarded so that they will always look forward in their progression. In another way the new businesses will take this as a target to achieve and will try harder each year to be recognised among the Top Twenty Five.

What is remarkable is that either way the corporate entities are motivated to raise their standards and keep moving forward and we should also appreciate the effort by Business Today magazine for providing this momentum.

Facilitating private sector development

We as the Government have always been sensitive to private sector investments and have done our best to support and facilitate the private sector development. The greatest investment we have done under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is ending the 30-year-long civil conflict.

When many local and international experts on conflict were loudly saying that this war could never be ended by defeat he was confident and took the challenge even risking his life and showed the world that a terrorist conflict can be defeated. We invested billions of ascertainable resources and young lives that can never be valued and compensated.

We should remember that these are the capital investments from the Government that pave way for growing economy that stood still even within the global recession. I am confident that the private sector will utilise these benefits and contribute to the national economy as strongly as the public sector.

Three years have passed since the end of conflict and we as a Government did not terminate our investment at bringing the much-anticipated peace and political stability to the country. We took further steps to invest in physical infrastructure development and to ensure continuous economic growth.

It is my duty to appreciate the hard work and dedication by our dynamic Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa in success of both infrastructure and economic development. Under his directives our rural economies are flourishing where the physical development is visible to support the economic growth in areas that used to be remote and inaccessible.

We have identified the importance of private sector in our policy framework and are keen to become the facilitator to nurture investments from private parties, and even extending our hands for private public partnerships.

Infrastructure and economic development

As a facilitator we have expedited the road development works and were able to open the first expressway in the country which brought down the travelling time almost to one fourth. Opening of the new harbour at Hambantota, constructing the second international airport at Mattala, expediting the completion of the airport highway, initiating the Northern Expressway, and opening the Upper Kotmale Power Plant are among the key developments from the Government to facilitate economic growth and to create a conductive environment for private investments.

Social infrastructure development was also not neglected and we continue to invest in free education and free national healthcare system, being among the very few countries continuing to do so. There are many social benefit schemes integrated into development programs such as Divi Neguma to ensure the sustainability of the development and achieving the long-term development goals.  The expected private investment in 2016 is 27 per cent of GDP, which includes FDI direct investment of four per cent of GDP to reach 33-34 per cent. To achieve this target the Government has been successful in mobilising large investments from well-connected global players.

Furthermore, a good example of the public sector and the private sector working together is the private-public partnership that was carried out with the Colombo Port. Utilising this experience, the Government is working on the northern superhighway, which connects Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Trincomalee with a private-public partnership.

The same approach has been utilised for certain power generation and solid waste management projects. The reason for mentioning this is that for the private sector of Sri Lanka PPPs are a good mechanism to work in larger projects where the knowledge and the expertise of both sectors are required.

We specifically identified the important role of private sector in some industries such as tourism, construction, entertainment and have provided concessions to encourage investments. We have seen key global players in the tourism and hospitality investing in the country setting a positive trend for further developments.

Opportunities

During the past year especially with the economic downturn in leading global markets, as well as with the devaluation of the rupee, increase in world oil prices and retraction of the economy as a whole, the Sri Lankan private sector has increasingly looked inwards at opportunities within the country and many of the Business Top Twenty Five winners have utilised this approach. This depicts that we are moving on an accurate path towards becoming a developed nation.

We strongly believe that without the contribution from the private sector we could not achieve our economic development targets and I urge you all to become active partners in national development, try to explore new ventures, find innovative solutions, improve research and development capacities, and utilise your share of the peace dividend.

We are always there to support and facilitate you not to make any hindrance. So let us work together to build a better nation for our future generations as a developed country. Wish you all the best. Thank you.