Economic targets still within Sri Lanka's reach - CB Governor

Hiran H. Senewiratne

Confidence: The Government has no reason to disbelieve that we cannot achieve economic targets notwithstanding the LTTE's terror strike on the Air Force base at Katunayake, Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said.

"We should not overreact to this matter and should act with restraint to face this challenge. First we have to build the confidence in people to deal with the situation in a more prudent manner," Cabraal said.

"Given the current situation we could see that the market is quite stable and consider this attack as a temporary setback that will not have a drastic effect on the economy in the long run," he said.

Cabraal said that where the tourist industry is concerned the tourist authorities should focus more on attracting tourists from Asian and Middle Eastern regions, as they are less sensitive to terrorist activities.

We could attract Indian, Chinese and Middle-Eastern tourists, as they are less sensitive to these attacks, he explained.

Sri Lankan tourism authorities must focus on attracting tourist from those regions with a lot of enthusiasm and the arrival of tourists from these regions has gained momentum during the recent past, the Central Bank Governor said.

He said Asian tourists are less sensitive to terrorist activities as most of those countries are also grappling with some kind of terror problem, while the European markets are very sensitive.

He said that during the past few years there is a remarkable increase in the number of Asian tourists especially from the Indian subcontinent.

Since the Asian market is growing, the Sri Lanka Tourist Board could promote with a lot of vengeance among those markets to compensate for the drop in the European markets due to these terrorist activities in the country, he said.

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Export Processing Zones operating as usual

Assurance: The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka wishes to reassure the investor community, the public and all stakeholders in the investment effort of the country that the Katunayake Export Processing Zone, or any other export processing zone, has not been affected by the recent incident at the airport, a communique by Board of Investment Chairman Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala said.

We also wish to add that the management of the zone is functioning normally and that there has been no disruption in the functioning of any of the factories at the KEPZ. All factories within the zone and outside are operating as normal and are engaged in the import and export activities as usual, he said.

The BOI also wishes to thank members of the investor community who have expressed continued confidence in Sri Lanka, the communique said.