In Parliament: Third generation of reforms

‘Third generation of reforms’-Rishad in Parliament

• Thermal power affecting industry-Rishad
• Calls for lowering of energy costs
• Says youth drawn to Services, not manufacturing

Sri Lanka’s proposed economic reforms are of such a magnitude that it is possibly the third generation of reforms in the country’s economic history-and Lankan youth are increasingly attracted to services and it is now time to enlist them to manufacturing as well, said a top Cabinet Minister addressing the Parliament on 27 November. Minister of Industry and Commerce Rihad Bathiudeen, presenting his Budget speech in Parliament, also called for lowering of energy costs to sustain country’s manufacturing competitiveness.

“I commend Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s call for clear long term economic policy for Sri Lanka to become a highly competitive social market economy. The proposed reforms could be said as the third generation of “economic reforms in Sri Lanka’s history” said Minister Bathiudeen addressing the Parliament on 27 November and added: “As the Industry Minister I stress that Industries are one third of our GDP with another 60 percent from services sector. Our industry base is almost manufacturing rather than mining or ‘electricity gas and water supply.’ In fact 99 percent of our industry are in manufacturing and this sector is diverse with some world class segments such as Apparels, rubber, packaging, stationery, and print material. The industrial development of the country is vital for us to transform into a strong economy in Asia. Still we also need to focus on cost of manufacturing for this to be truly effective and productive. It is important for us to minimize power costs in our manufacturing. We pay between $4 billion to 5 Billion for oil imports and about one-fourth of our imports costs are for oil. Since Thermal power is the key power supply with 70% of the supply, our manufacturing energy costs need to be lowered further, with the reduction of thermal energy. Studies also show that power demand will increase from industries in future as a result of a more complex economy and households due to rising incomes. Today I appeal our Prime Minister to integrate this power situation too in to the above economic reform plans so that our manufacturing and industries are even more cost effective.“

According to studies 20% of imported oil is used for power generation while the demand for power is expected to grow by 5% per year.

Speaking on the need to engage more youth into manufacturing, Minister Bathiudeen sadi: “I believe that the plan to provide one million jobs in the coming years is a great step forward for our youth. This action will also pave the way to integrate our youth more closely to our economic reform process. Still I wish to bring you an important aspect in this regard so that our current plans would become more effective. One important trend is that our youth are increasingly attracted to service sector jobs and their education and training are also more focused on service sector and service excellence rather than industry orientation. One reason I believe is that there is a lack of wide availability of industrial training and development opportunities. Also the skills mismatch and strong focus by everyone on few types of attractive employment that is competition for certain types of jobs have created this situation. To develop our education Prime Minister’s vision to create short-term skills and improve the quality of our primary secondary and post-secondary education are commendable. It is also time that we integrate more industrial training in our education sector and enhance existing vocational training schemes across many more subjects. Technology education should not only be for ICT and computing but also for industrial and machine technologies as well as new health and medicine and innovation sectors. When I say machine technologies I do not mean to say Juki sewing type of training only. Here I focus on advanced industrial training such as nano-technology and innovation focus.”