President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has created a new Bureau for National Policies and Plan Implementation, which will be directly under him, top political sources told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
These sources said the formation of this Bureau would be announced in the President’s address to Parliament on January 3, 2020.
The theme of the Presidential Address will be “The Road to Prosperity”and would spell out the development strategies for the five year period 2020 to 2025.
This development agency will also see the cancellation and annulment of the earlier state agencies created and continued by Presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Maithripala Sirisena, viz, the National Economic Commission (NEC) and the Strategic Enterprise Management Agency ( SEMA)
The Cabinet of Ministers, at its meeting on Wednesday (18) has approved this proposal.
Among the targets that the Agency would be tasked would be to see that the economic growth rate would be 6.5% of GDP for the period 2020- 2025, the increase of Per Capita Income to over US $ 6,500, Unemployment to less than 4%, Budget Deficit to less than 4% of GDP and Inflation to less than 5%.
The new Bureau will be tasked to find the resources and monitor the implementation of the programs as well, the sources said.