25 March 2024 09:46 am
Sri Lanka will see more economic reforms after June this year and thereby begin cultivating new export crops, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said over the weekend.
Speaking to the youth in Polonnaruwa, he said economic reforms will come into effect after the debt restructuring process comes to an end by June this year.
“IMF has agreed with our proposals pertaining to debt restructuring. We now have to sign up agreements with our debtors. Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena is expected to come to an agreement during his visit to China. Sagala Ratnayake will try to come up with an agreement with India during his visit. Central Bank Governor is expected to travel to the UK with the treasury secretary to have a dialogue with private debtors. We hope to come to an agreement with the debtors and finalize the debt restructuring programme by June this year, the President said.
“We will have to come up with economic reforms while engaging with our debtors. We are planning to go for an export based agricultural programme. Accordingly, we will start up a programme to grow Durian for the Chinese market. It is a five million dollar market. We are also going to focus on exporting value added cinnamon. We will also set up a thousand acre economic processing zone in the North. Another plan is to increase daily tourism earnings to $ 5 million. Anyway, people will have to decide as to which way the country should go,” he added.
The President revealed that he began a dialogue with the IMF even before he became the President. “I spoke to IMF officials and briefed the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. I only focused on the future of the country rather than my political future,” he said.
Responding to a youth who said JVP killed three of his family members in 1989, President Wickremesinghe said he should question the JVP leaders on the matter. “Go to one of the JVP rallies and question its leaders on the killing of your family members,” he told the youth.