If the government carries on with the proposed privatization process of all the businesses that the government SHOULDN’T be doing, the country could earn trillions of rupees from these sales proceeds.
This was opined by founder Chairman of diversified business entity, with interest in real estate, Almas Holdings Imtiaz Buhardeen.
He said that in addition to gaining massive amounts in trillions of rupees, this process will also help to increase efficiency and provide a better service to the public. He said that potential foreign buyers would be interested in local telco, hospitals, hotels, insurance, banks, utility gas and renewable sectors to invest.
He also said that the privatization process will automatically reduce corruption and it will be eliminated almost permanently.
There won’t be any appointments for this sector by politicians and they will also not be able to use their influence to get tenders passed through influence. If the hard reforms are carried through like India and Thailand Sri Lanka can come out of this mess and be sustainable and go on a growth and prosperity path for all.
“I believe Sri Lanka has so much potential and the country can do it right.”
He said that in addition to continuing with the SOE privatization process the government initiated reforms process too should continue at a faster pace. He also said that the tax net should be broad based roping in more tax payers. The digitization process too should be expedited. “In a bid to have a better investment climate for investors, urgent steps should be taken on improving the Ease of Doing Business index. This will help to attract more and bigger FDI’s.”
More focus should also be done towards attracting more FDI towards the port city. The Government should also look at signing more free trade agreements. He also said both foreign remittances and tourism revenue will keep on increasing.
He also predicted that the construction sector after a relatively slower activity for the last 2 years will improve with increase of economic activity. He however said that there would be some concerns for 2024 these include, high taxation, high cost of living, slow progress or implementation of reforms, protest by unions against SOE reforms and elections.
Shirajiv Sirimane