The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) will conduct meetings next week regarding the budget proposals, its Economist Anushka Wijesingha told the Sunday Observer.
“We will have meetings every day for five days and will hold a series of meetings focusing on all the sectors, to generate proposals for Budget 2018, Wijesinha said.
Following the first round of consultations, the Chamber will formulate the proposals and forward them to sector heads and relevant industry associations. The next phase will be to refine and filter the proposals and submit it to the Finance Ministry.
“As was the case last year and the year before, we expect to have a one-on-one meeting with the Finance Minister and his team, to present, elaborate and discuss the selected proposals,” he said.
According to Wijesingha, the advisor to the Finance Ministry has been informed that the process has been launched, and the Chamber had obtained advice and guidance from the Ministry on what the policy priorities and overall policy orientation of the Ministry was, with regards to tax policy and public expenditure, so that the CCC can guide its members on the macro context within which the proposals need to be framed. A senior official of the National Chamber of Commerce said that there will be a meeting to collect proposals from the 16 standard committees.
“We have 16 standard committees and 16 sectors are clustered into four business segments. These segments discussed all their issues and came up with proposals. They have already sent the proposals to the NCCSL,” he said.
“We are into detailed evaluation to select the proposals at a meeting next week,” he said. A Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI) official said that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has circulated a mail regarding the budget proposals.
Meanwhile, the National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) of Sri Lanka conducted a brainstorming forum to discuss and identify sector issues of members to be submitted as budget proposals.