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| Sunday, 17 July 2005 |
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Concessions for tourism imports by Indeewara Thilakarathne Duty free concessions for all goods and equipment imported for the tourism industry will be granted, said Sri Lanka Tourist Board Chairman Udaya Nanayakkara at a workshop held recently. The Workshop titled 'Micro Finance and SME in Tourism Industry' to formulate policies and to device ways and means to bring back SMEs and non-formal business establishments that were destroyed by the tsunami, into business again and to provide them financial assistance with minimal collateral. He said that the tsunami had adversely affected the livelihood of over 300,000 persons causing structural damages amounting to US $ 200 in the Southern Province. 'At least two years will be taken to repair them. Forty eight classified hotels and 31 operations were completely wiped out by the tsunami. The most irreparable damage was the damage caused to the country's image as a prime destination', he said. The Tourist Board Chairman further said that massive promotional campaign in prime international markets was launched with Rs. 6 million budget. Already several media and trade familiarisation tours were conducted under the patronage of SLTB, Air Lanka and cluster of hoteliers in the industry. As a part of this on-going campaign Sri Lanka will host the Annual Congress of Indian Travel Agents Association in Colombo from 24-27 September. He said that the capacity of tourist arrivals to the country has increased by 15 per cent with a daily expense capacity of US $ 72. The Government is expected to attract 600,000 tourists with daily expense capacity of US $ 84. A spokesperson from the Central Bank said that the Central Bank had introduced a loan scheme for SMEs in the Tourism Industry. The "SU-SAHANA" grants loans to SMEs to resume their operations at 6 per cent and one year grace period and 3-8 years period of repayment period. Loans could be obtained from 83 financial institutions with minimum collateral requirements. |
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