Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament yesterday that Budget 2017 was a historic one that has been prepared with the participation of President Maithripala Sirisena and the two main parties the UNP and the SLFP worked together.
Participating at the Second Reading of the Budget, the Premier said even though the two main parties now working together may take different paths in the future, the present National Unity Government, will adopt economic policies that will be constant despite future political changes.
“This is the best opportunity to make new economic polices taking the strengths of the two main parties into consideration so that when there is a change in Government, one will not be compelled to say that these are the policies of other parties and change them,” he said. The Prime Minister who invoked the words of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to stress that the economic path of the National Unity Government would not be just confined to ideologies. Deng Xiaoping said that “I don’t care if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” Similarly, we don’t care if the colour is green or blue or red and we will work together to build an economic policy that would be retained even if there are changes in the Government, he said.
The Premier said that there may be some difficulties to face in the next two to three years, but the economy will move forward in keeping with the changes that are being put in place.
In the past year, we had to overcome the immediate economic challenges that we faced and pay off massive loans and had to resurrect the economy which was suffering from bad investment.
The Premier also stressed the need for forgoing new economic alliances with the Free Trade Agreements with China, India and Singapore and added that the Government would also seek stronger ties with Pakistan and Iran as well.
He said we have to develop relations with the Southern Indian states and other Bay of Bengal nations as well as Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar which are recording an accelerated economic growth.
Except from the garment sector, we also have to develop new industry. Premier Wickremesinghe said the Budget is meant for the masses and that the additional revenue the Government earns will go towards education, health and housing.
“Many measures were introduced in the Budget to further strengthen the free education system in the country. We all hve benefited from the free education system in the country. Therefore, we will further strengthen it and make 13 years of schooling mandatory.”