Tbilisi: Disbursements and funding of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is very important for Sri Lanka to bridge the finance gap, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe told Daily News Business on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of ADB’s Board of Governors held in Tbilisi, Georgia.
He said the government needs assistance from the Asian Development Bank(ADB) for the SME sector which is severely affected at the moment and the tourism sector. He said SME and tourism were two critical areas apart from infrastructure development and he would seek more funding from ADB towards these areas.
The minister said it would now be much easier for all multilaterals to support Sri Lanka because the country has now been placed in a globally accepted framework based in Sri Lanka.
He said the country has a long way to go in the process of stabilisation and without initial moves taken by the government one cannot think of the next step.
He said lots of people talk about the last step but without completing the first couple of steps towards stabilisation the economy cannot move forward and any deviation from the reform process would bring in far severe repercussions.
“The benchmark is 2022 for everything. Are we going to grow on the progress we received so far or are we going back by reversing all these reforms and going to a worse situation, the people should decide. But the government and President is very much committed to carry forward these reforms.” Minister Semasinghe said reversing, indication of a reversal; indication of a change will only take the country toward severe chaos.
Meanwhile, participants were gathering in Tbilisi, Georgia for the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) 57th Annual Meeting, which opened yesterday and will examine key development issues facing Asia and the Pacific including climate change, artificial intelligence, and green globalization.
Fizel Jabir in Georgia