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| Sunday, 10 November 2002 |
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Budget proposals right on track - Analysts by SUREKHA GALAGODA The second budget of the UNF government has focused on medium and long term economic development and growth but not on short term political gains through doling out of incentives, business analysts say. The Budget has not addressed the aspect of post war recovery directly as the government does not have enough funds, said Research Fellow International Centre for Ethnic Studies Dr Muthukrishna Sarvananthan. He said " government is expecting the donor community to come forward to fund the restructuring of the North and East at the Oslo conference. The Government has invited ten major donor countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Norway, France and several other European countries to the mini-pledging conference in Oslo on November 25 will be followed by a much larger donor conference to be held in Tokyo. He said the efforts to curtail public debt and the budget deficit are commendable as this will help increase growth. As the proposals spelt out in the first budget are at the implementation stage the government has taken measures to pursue them without introducing new proposals and it is laudable as this shows that the government is on the right track said Dr Sarvananthan. A well known economist said that most of the aid from the donor community will come to the North and East. But this he said will help to reduce unemployment in the country in the long run as it will generate economic activity. Dr Shantha Yahanpath Director Agape International a Sydney based investment and management consulting firm said the budget 2003 delivers attractive incentives to the investment and wealth management (IWM) sector. The challenge is to develop and offer high quality investment products to investors and channel funds to the post conflict economic revival of the country while the local investors can participate in the local currency component, expatriates and migrant workers can be key players to fund the foreign currency component of projects. Tax concessions and tax holidays are catalysts to more private sector involvements in infrastructure, utilities and other economic development initiatives noted Dr Yahanpath. |
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