A high-powered five-person International Task Force (ITF) has been appointed to address and overcome the ongoing, burning foreign currency issue in Sri Lanka compromising Marion Marithasan of Denver, USA, as Task Force Lead, Ambassador Buddhi Athauda from Washington DC, USA and business magnate and scholar Dr. Arosha Fernando as senior advisors, Nish Hettigama of Sydney as Operations and Program Management Head and Lahiru Dileepa Fonseka as Local Research and Development Head.
Marithasan is one of only twenty people selected to serve on the Biden-Sanders Pre-Election Task Force in USA in 2020 assigned to investigate the legalising of Cannabis at federal level, and served as an Advisor to the President of USA, Joe Biden.
Marithasan compiled the new task force for Sri Lanka from native-born Sri Lankans with specific skills who can work with the Government to assist with any transition to growing raw industrial hemp within a responsible regulatory framework of international standards under the tagline of ‘For the service of the Sri Lankan Government and Our People’.
“Raw industrial hemp is one of the world’s fastest growing global markets. Over 70 countries produce raw industrial hemp, including the USA and China. Having never banned hemp, China is the world’s largest producer and the global raw industrial hemp market is forecast to grow by 300% or USD 10 billion in the coming five years.
“Sri Lanka offers some of the world’s best growing environments for raw industrial hemp.
Making our legislation enabling to capture this global opportunity, we are in a position to brining a large foreign revenue to Sri Lanka solving our current foreign revenue crises,”said the Senior Advisor to the taskforce, Dr. Arosha Fernando during the inaugural meeting of the task force last week at the Galle Face Hotel.
“In 2005 our Task Force Lead, Marithasan founded Ceylon Solutions and since then, Ceylon Solutions has brought millions of dollars into the Sri Lankan economy. It has also bought jobs, knowledge and training in cutting-edge international technologies, which has improved opportunity and living standards for hundreds if not thousands of Sri Lankans.Today, Marion is at the cutting edge of the emerging cannabis and hemp industries that has co-founded and leads the regulatory and operational compliance organisation, Simplifya.
“Marithason who is passionately a Sri Lankan bringing his expertise and resources to help Sri Lanka move ahead of the early market expansion, leverage global opportunity, and provide jobs, education and opportunities forfellow Sri Lankans and more importantly solving our current foreign revenue crises,” Dr. Arosha said.
The task force had its inaugural meeting last week at the Galle Face Hotel, and expects to meet the key decision makers in the Government in the coming days to discuss how best the Government could help the task force to implement the proposed project by making the right legislation at the earliest possible not only considering the current financial environment of the country but also carefully evaluating the case studies from other countries including USA.
“The taskforce also recognises not only the economic opportunities the hemp industry poses for Sri Lanka on multiple fronts - job creation, new manufacturing businesses and tax revenue through exports. We also see the opportunity for the local manufacture of hemp derived 100% Earth- friendly biodegradable products, that will transition Sri Lanka from being one of the biggest users and polluters of plastics, to being one of the first countries to become free of plastics - something that Sri Lanka can be proud of and showcase on the world stage,”Dr. Arosha said.